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9ec699d When you are in a hole, the top priority is to stop digging. politics William Easterly
93ca279 The root of the black man's hatred is rage, and he does not so much had the white man as simply as want the out of his way, and, more than that, out of his children's way. The root of the white man's hatred is terror, a bottomless and nameless terror, which focuses on this dread figure, an entity which lives only in his mind. racism politics race James Baldwin
8686be0 In no other arena is the church at greater risk of losing its calling than in the public square. politics Philip Yancey
b2a603a I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. politics government protest Henry David Thoreau
563439e New Rule: If we want to find a place to cut government waste, we must start with the DEA rubber duck. Yes, on the DEA's website you can buy a rubber ducky with a DEA badge and a cop's hat. Which I recommend doing, because they're a great place to hide your weed. politics humor drugs Bill Maher
6a0ade0 Overborrowing or overlending? Lenders encourage indebtedness because it is profitable. Developing country governments are sometimes even pressured to overborrow ... Even without corruption, it is easy to be influenced by Western businessmen and financiers ... Countries that aren't sure that borrowing is worth the rist are told how important it is to establis a credit rating: borrow even if you really don't need the money. politics Joseph E. Stiglitz
f321e17 Just as she was unaware of the hidden currents of politics running below the surface of College affairs, so the Scholars, for their part, would have been unable to see the rich seething stew of alliances and enmities and feuds and treaties which was a child's life in Oxford. Children playing together: how pleasant to see! What could be more innocent and charming? irony politics rivalry innocence Philip Pullman
2c4b453 Americans today confuse freedom with not being asked to sacrifice. The fact that you can't have everything you want exactly when you want it has somehow become un-American. freedom politics sacifice selfless war-on-terror selfish patriotism Bill Maher
0ba66e3 "New Rule: Conservatives have to stop rolling their eyes every time they hear the word "France." Like just calling something French is the ultimate argument winner. As if to say, "What can you say about a country that was too stupid to get on board with our wonderfully conceived and brilliantly executed war in Iraq?" And yet an American politician could not survive if he uttered the simple, true statement: "France has a better health-care system than we do, and we should steal it." Because here, simply dismissing an idea as French passes for an argument. John Kerry? Couldn't vote for him--he looked French. Yeah, as a opposed to the other guy, who just looked stupid. Last week, France had an election, and people over there approach an election differently. They vote. Eighty-five percent turned out. You couldn't get eighty-five percent of Americans to get off the couch if there was an election between tits and bigger tits and they were giving out free samples. Maybe the high turnout has something to do with the fact that the French candidates are never asked where they stand on evolution, prayer in school, abortion, stem cell research, or gay marriage. And if the candidate knows about a character in a book other than Jesus, it's not a drawback. The electorate doesn't vote for the guy they want to have a croissant with. Nor do they care about private lives. In the current race, Madame Royal has four kids, but she never got married. And she's a socialist. In America, if a Democrat even thinks you're calling him "liberal," he grabs an orange vest and a rifle and heads into the woods to kill something. Royal's opponent married, but they live apart and lead separate lives. And the people are with that, for the same reason they're okay with nude beaches: because they're not a nation of six-year-olds who scream and giggle if they see pee-pee parts. They have weird ideas about privacy. They think it should be private. In France, even mistresses have mistresses. To not have a lady on the side says to the voters, "I'm no good at multitasking." Like any country, France has its faults, like all that ridiculous accordion music--but their health care is the best in the industrialized world, as is their poverty rate. And they're completely independent of Mid-East oil. And they're the greenest country. And they're not fat. They have public intellectuals in France. We have Dr. Phil. They invented sex during the day, lingerie, and the tongue. Can't we admit we could learn from them?" politics elections france Bill Maher
1bb7048 ...decisions were often made because of ideology and politics. As a result many wrong-headed actions were taken, ones that did not solve the problem at hand but that fit with the interests or beliefs of the people in power. politics Joseph E. Stiglitz
662ce32 Injuries, therefore, should be inflicted all at once, that their ill savour being less lasting may the less offend; whereas, benefits should be conferred little by little, that so they may be more fully relished. politics shrewdness political-philosophy strategy Niccolò Machiavelli
f4e7707 And what physicians say about consumptive illnesses is applicable here: that at the beginning, such an illness is easy to cure but difficult to diagnose; but as time passes, not having been recognized or treated at the outset, it becomes easy to diagnose but difficult to cure. politics problems Niccolò Machiavelli
e3dab45 Considering thus how much honor is awarded to antiquity, and how many times--letting pass infinite other examples--a fragment of an ancient statue has been bought at high price because someone wants to have it near oneself, to honor his house with it, and to be able to have it imitated by those who delight in that art, and how the latter then strive with all industry to represent it in all their works; and seeing, on the other hand, that the most virtuous works the histories show us, which have been done by ancient kingdoms and republics, by kings, captains, citizens, legislators, and others who have labored for their fatherland, are rather admired than imitated--indeed they are so much shunned by everyone in every least thing that no sign of that ancient virtue remains with us--I can do no other than marvel and grieve... From this it arises that the infinite number who read [the histories] take pleasure in hearing of the variety of accidents contained within them without thinking of imitating them, judging that imitation is not only difficult but impossible--as if heaven, sun, elements, men had varied in motion, order, and power from what they were in antiquity. Wishing, therefore, to turn men from this error, I have judged it necessary to write on all those books of Titus Livy... history politics classics Niccolò Machiavelli
2be9dfd If any era should be aware of the temptations to rewrite history, it is our own. politics lie Marjorie Garber
c6adf91 Can't you see there's a determinism about the fate of nations? They all seem to get what they deserve in the long run. fate karma history politics geopolitics just-desserts nations determinism Malcolm Lowry
96e36c3 As history has also shown, especially in the twentieth century, one of the first things an ideologue will do after achieving absolute power is kill. violence history politics ideologue progressives revolt rule political-philosophy government revolution power oppression Thomas Sowell
2acd456 Some say that because the United States was wrong before, it cannot possibly be right now, or has not the right to be right. (The British Empire sent a fleet to Africa and the Caribbean to maintain the slave trade while the very same empire later sent another fleet to enforce abolition. I would not have opposed the second policy because of my objections to the first; rather it seems to me that the second policy was morally necessitated by its predecessor.) morality politics american-imperialism anti-americanism africa iraq-war british-empire imperialism united-states slave-trade caribbean britain Christopher Hitchens
edbe47c The North Korean capital, Pyongyang, is a city consecrated to the worship of a father-son dynasty. (I came to think of them, with their nuclear-family implications, as 'Fat Man and Little Boy.') And a river runs through it. And on this river, the Taedong River, is moored the only American naval vessel in captivity. It was in January 1968 that the U.S.S. strayed into North Korean waters, and was boarded and captured. One sailor was killed; the rest were held for nearly a year before being released. I looked over the spy ship, its radio antennae and surveillance equipment still intact, and found photographs of the captain and crew with their hands on their heads in gestures of abject surrender. Copies of their groveling 'confessions,' written in tremulous script, were also on show. So was a humiliating document from the United States government, admitting wrongdoing in the penetration of North Korean waters and petitioning the 'D.P.R.K.' (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) for 'lenience.' Kim Il Sung ('Fat Man') was eventually lenient about the men, but not about the ship. Madeleine Albright didn't ask to see the vessel on her visit last October, during which she described the gruesome, depopulated vistas of Pyongyang as 'beautiful.' As I got back onto the wharf, I noticed a refreshment cart, staffed by two women under a frayed umbrella. It didn't look like much--one of its three wheels was missing and a piece of brick was propping it up--but it was the only such cart I'd see. What toothsome local snacks might the ladies be offering? The choices turned out to be slices of dry bread and cups of warm water. Nor did Madeleine Albright visit the absurdly misnamed 'Demilitarized Zone,' one of the most heavily militarized strips of land on earth. Across the waist of the Korean peninsula lies a wasteland, roughly following the 38th parallel, and packed with a titanic concentration of potential violence. It is four kilometers wide (I have now looked apprehensively at it from both sides) and very near to the capital cities of both North and South. On the day I spent on the northern side, I met a group of aging Chinese veterans, all from Szechuan, touring the old battlefields and reliving a war they helped North Korea nearly win (China sacrificed perhaps a million soldiers in that campaign, including Mao Anying, son of Mao himself). Across the frontier are 37,000 United States soldiers. Their arsenal, which has included undeclared nuclear weapons, is the reason given by Washington for its refusal to sign the land-mines treaty. In August 1976, U.S. officers entered the neutral zone to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of an observation post. A posse of North Koreans came after them, and one, seizing the ax with which the trimming was to be done, hacked two U.S. servicemen to death with it. I visited the ax also; it's proudly displayed in a glass case on the North Korean side. war politics 1976 2000 2001 axe-murder-incident chinese-people korean-peninsula land-mines ottawa-treaty seoul sichuan taedong-river united-states-and-wmd united-states-army uss-pueblo-ager-2 totalitarianism korean-demilitarized-zone korean-war mao-zedong south-korea nuclear-weapons pyongyang united-states madeleine-albright washington-dc kim-il-sung kim-jong-il north-korea china Christopher Hitchens
dedc406 The neo-cons, or some of them, decided that they would back Clinton when he belatedly decided for Bosnia and Kosovo against Milosevic, and this even though they loathed Clinton, because the battle against religious and ethnic dictatorship in the Balkans took precedence. This, by the way, was partly a battle to save Muslims from Catholic and Christian Orthodox killers. That impressed me. The neo-cons also took the view, quite early on, that coexistence with Saddam Hussein was impossible as well as undesirable. They were dead right about that. They had furthermore been thinking about the menace of ism when most people were half-asleep. And then I have to say that I was rather struck by the way that the and its associated voices took the decision to get rid of Trent Lott earlier this year, thus removing an embarrassment as well as a disgrace from the political scene. And their arguments were on points of principle, not 'perception.' I liked their ruthlessness here, and their seriousness, at a time when much of the liberal Left is not even seriously wrong, but frivolously wrong, and babbles without any sense of responsibility. (I mean, have you their sub-Brechtian stuff on Halliburton....?) And revolution from above, in some states and cases, is--as I wrote in my book --often preferable to the status quo, or to no revolution at all. war christianity politics religion balkans bertolt-brecht halliburton persecution-of-muslims the-weekly-standard trent-lott bosnia bosnian-war kosovo kosovo-war slobodan-milosevic bill-clinton jihad saddam-hussein ethnicity neoconservatism dictatorship catholicism liberalism islam revolution leftism persecution Christopher Hitchens
e78eebd They accepted my donation, so they're aware they'd better serve my interests or I'll buy some leadership that will. politics leadership Tom Robbins
cce4ac1 "[Free trade agreements] are trade agreements that don't socialism politics brilliant bush corporatocracy coup-d-état democratic dictator free-trade gore green-party inefficiency lincoln nader reform protectionism ralph-nader transparency intelligent washington progressive corporations terrorism corruption rich obama genius jefferson government fascism capitalism communism Ralph Nader
e916337 I was taken to a villa to meet Sabri al-Banna, known as 'Abu Nidal' ('father of struggle'), who was at the time emerging as one of Yasser Arafat's main enemies. The meeting began inauspiciously when Abu Nidal asked me if I would like to be trained in one of his camps. No thanks, I explained. From this awkward beginning there was a further decline. I was then asked if I knew Said Hammami, the envoy of the PLO in London. I did in fact know him. He was a brave and decent man, who in a series of articles in the London had floated the first-ever trial balloon for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. 'Well tell him he is a traitor,' barked my host. 'And tell him we have only one way with those who betray us.' The rest of the interview passed as so many Middle Eastern interviews do: too many small cups of coffee served with too much fuss; too many unemployed heavies standing about with nothing to do and nobody to do it with; too much ugly furniture, too many too-bright electric lights; and much too much . The only political fact I could winnow, from Abu Nidal's vainglorious claims to control X number of 'fighters' in Y number of countries, was that he admired the People's Republic of China for not recognizing the State of Israel. I forget how I got out of his office. war politics interviews military-training plo said-hammami the-times two-state-solution arafat middle-east iraq israel london palestine china Christopher Hitchens
e01a3c8 You don't say 'they all do it' unless you know you've been doing it too. politics guilt Christopher Hitchens
106b428 "More recently, during a debate in the House of Lords in 1978 one of the members said: "If there is a more hideous language on the face of the earth than the American form of English, I should like to know what it is." (We should perhaps bear in mind that the House of Lords is a largely powerless, nonelective institution. It is an arresting fact of British political life that a Briton can enjoy a national platform and exalted status because he is the residue of an illicit coupling 300 years before between a monarch and an orange seller.)" politics humor english Bill Bryson
aae8f2e There's a kind of activism that's more about bolstering identity than achieving results, one that sometimes seems to make the left the true heirs of the Puritans. Puritanical in that the point becomes the demonstration of one's own virtue rather than the realization of results. And puritanical because the somber pleasure of condemning things is the most enduring part of that legacy, along with the sense of personal superiority that comes from pleasure denied. The bleakness of the world is required as contrasting backdrop to the drama of their rising above. politics hope Rebecca Solnit
d9f1c7f It's often said that those who are unduly bothered by gays are latent homosexuals. Isn't it possible that people obsessed with racism are themselves racist. racism politics Ann Coulter
27d2fe3 The State in particular is turned into a quasi-animate personality from whom everything is expected. In reality it is only a camouflage for those individuals who know how to manipulate it. freedom politics philosophy services welfare the-self individualism society state psychology C.G. Jung
cdc7616 In business and in politics a man must carve and maul his way through men to get to be King of the Mountain. Once there, he can be great and kind--but he must get there first. politics John Steinbeck
4c0d0b6 "It was Bill Clinton who once pithily captured the contrast between the two parties when it came to selecting a presidential standard-bearer: "Democrats want to fall in love; Republicans just fall in line." politics democrats republicans Mark Halperin
147ed77 He did not really understand the game they were playing: in his world, the best way to get something was to deserve it, not to toady to the giver. politics work reward Ken Follett
030bc5e The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it. politics humor democrats republicans government P.J. O'Rourke
101c80e "What does it mean to demonstrate in the streets, what is the significance of that collective activity so symptomatic of the twentieth century? In stupefaction Ulrich watches the demonstrators from the window; as they reach the foot of the palace, their faces turn up, turn furious, the men brandish their walking sticks, but "a few steps farther, at a bend where the demonstration seemed to scatter into the wings, most of them were already dropping their greasepaint: it would be absurd to keep up the menacing looks where there were no more spectators." In the light of that metaphor, the demonstrators are not men in a rage; they are actors performing rage! As soon as the performance is over they are quick to drop their greasepaint! Later, in the 1960s, philosophers would talk about the modern world in which everything had turned into spectacle: demonstrations, wars, and even love; through this "quick and sagacious penetration" (Fielding), Musil had already long ago discerned the "society of spectacle." rage politics demonstration spectacle activism modernism artifice protest Milan Kundera
112886a What these men represented was not 'The West' but what was for this century a relatively new kind of monied class in America, a group devoid of social responsibilities because their ties to any one place had been so attenuated. politics Joan Didion
dd9c59e "Uniformity in the common law, consisting of broad principles like the "reasonable person" standard, generally permits adjustment for the circumstances. This type of uniform principle is almost synonymous with fairness. Uniform application of a detailed rule, on the other hand, will almost always favor one group over another. p. 34" politics common-law red-tape law government fairness Philip K. Howard
25ad3e0 "This is the lesson of all great television commercials: They provide a slogan, a symbol or a focus that creates for viewers a comprehensive and compelling image of themselves. In the shift from party politics to television politics, the same goal is sought. We are not permitted to know who is best at being President or Governor or Senator, but whose image is best in touching and soothing the deep reaches of our discontent. We look at the television screen and ask, in the same voracious way as the Queen in , "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" We are inclined to vote for those whose personality, family life, and style, as imaged on the screen, give back a better answer than the Queen received. As Xenophanes remarked twenty-five centuries ago, men always make their gods in their own image. But to this, television politics has added a new wrinkle: Those who would be gods refashion themselves into images the viewers would have them be." television politics psychology Neil Postman
72bdad1 You had to have these peasant leaders quickly in this sort of war and a real peasant leader might be a little too much like Pablo. You couldn't wait for the real Peasant Leader to arrive and he might have too many peasant characteristics when he did. So you had to manifacture one. At that, from what he had seen of Campesino, with his black beard, his thick negroid lips, and his feverish, staring eyes, he thought he might give almost as much trouble as a real peasant leader. The last time he had seen him he seemed to have gotten to believe his own publicity and think he was a peasant. politics proletariat class revolution communism Ernest Hemingway
6e4c2ce A favorite liberal taunt is to accuse conservatives of clinging to an idealized past. Poor, right-wing Americans vaguely sense the world is changing and now they're lashing out. What about the idealized past liberals cling to? They all act as if they were civil rights foot soldiers constantly getting beat up by 500-pound southern sheriffs, while every twenty-year-old Republican today is treated as if he is on Team Bull Connor. At best, the struggle for civil rights was an intra-Democratic Party fight. More accurately, it was Republicans and blacks fighting Democrat segregationists and enablers. politics liberalism Ann Coulter
002333b The Imperial forces must keep their hands off, but they find that they can do much even so. Each sector is encouraged to be suspicious of its neighbors. Within each sector, economic and social classes are encouraged to wage a kind of war with each other. The result is that all over Trantor it is impossible for the people to take united action. Everywhere, the people would rather fight each other than make a common stand against the central tyranny and the Empire rules without having to exert force. politics revolution Isaac Asimov
f4ef1f8 At the stroke of midnight in Washington, a drooling red-eyed beast with the legs of a man and a head of a giant hyena crawls out of its bedroom window in the South Wing of the White House and leaps fifty feet down to the lawn...pauses briefly to strangle the Chow watchdog, then races off into the darkness...towards the Watergate, snarling with lust, loping through the alleys behind Pennsylvania Avenue, and trying desperately to remember which one of those fore hundred identical balconies is the one outside of Martha Mitchell's apartment....Ah...Nightmares, nightmares. But I was only kidding. The President of the United States would never act that weird. At least not during football season. politics werewolf Hunter S. Thompson
18fa726 "One must avoid snobbery and misanthropy. But one must also be unafraid to criticise those who reach for the lowest common denominator, and who sometimes succeed in finding it. This criticism would be effortless if there were no "people" waiting for just such an appeal. Any fool can lampoon a king or a bishop or a billionaire. A trifle more grit is required to face down a mob, or even a studio audience that has decided it knows what it wants and is entitled to get it. And the fact that kings and bishops and billionaires often have more say than most in forming appetites and emotions of the crowd is not irrelevant, either." rebellion politics strength wisdom dissent Christopher Hitchens
b34b769 Control over the production and distribution of oil is the decisive factor in defining who rules whom in the Middle East. politics oil oil-reserves petroleum petroleum-politics middle-east Christopher Hitchens
d663632 The King! I thought him enough of a philosopher to realize that there is no such thing as murder in politics. You know as well as I do, my dear boy, that in politics there are no people, only ideas; no feelings, only interests. In politics, you don't kill a man, you remove an obstacle, that's all. politics Alexandre Dumas
beef11e That's what peace is, right? Postponing the conflict until the thing you were fighting over doesn't matter. politics conflict-resolution fighting peace James S.A. Corey
e74cb1e "When the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy.But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud. As much as I ever did, more than I ever did, I believe in Liberalism. But there was a rosy time of innocence when I believed in Liberals." idealism youth politics practicality experience G.K. Chesterton
9a77746 I do not deny, but strongly affirm, the right of the State to interfere to cure a great evil. I say that in this case it would interfere to create a great evil; and I am not going to be turned from the discussion of that direct issue to bottomless botherations about Socialism and Individualism, or the relative advantages of always turning to the right and always turning to the left. socialism politics G.K. Chesterton
34f7124 He didn't know the right people. That's all a police record means in this rotten crime-ridden country. politics police Raymond Chandler
d494bb4 There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. politics individual Henry David Thoreau
9dec874 A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority. politics majority restance minority power democracy Henry David Thoreau
f2dda27 New Rule: Since Glenn Beck is clearly onto us, liberals must launch our plan for socialist domination immediately. Listen closely, comrades, I've received word from General Soros and our partners in the UN--Operation Streisand is a go. Markos Moulitsas, you and your -controlled army of gay Mexican day laborers will join with Michael Moore's Prius tank division north of Branson, where you will seize the guns of everyone who doesn't blame America first, forcing them into the FEMA concentration camps. That's where ACORN and I will re-educate them as atheists and declare victory in the war on Christmas. politics glenn-beck left-wing Bill Maher
a791592 It is not an overstatement to say that the destiny of the entire human race depends on what is going on in America today. This is a staggering reality to the rest of the world; they must feel like passengers in a supersonic jetliner who are forced to watch helplessly while a passel of drunks, hypes, freaks, and madmen fight for the controls and the pilot's seat. - Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 1968 politics leadership Mark Kurlansky
01b8a97 "Their conversation ceased abruptly with the entry of an oddly-shaped man whose body resembled a certain vegetable. He was a thickset fellow with calloused and jaundiced skin and a patch of brown hair, a frizzy upheaval. We will call him Bell Pepper. Bell Pepper sidled up beside The Drippy Man and looked at the grilled cheese in his hand. The Drippy Man, a bit uncomfortable at the heaviness of the gaze, politely apologized and asked Bell Pepper if he would like one. "Why is one of your legs fatter than the other?" asked Bell Pepper. The Drippy Man realized Bell Pepper was not looking at his sandwich but towards the inconsistency of his leg sizes. "You always get your kicks pointing out defects?" retorted The Drippy Man. "Just curious. Never seen anything like it before." "I was raised not to feel shame and hide my legs in baggy pants." "So you flaunt your deformity by wearing short shorts?" "Like you flaunt your pockmarks by not wearing a mask?" Bell Pepper backed away, kicking wide the screen door, making an exit to a porch over hanging a dune of sand that curved into a jagged upward jab of rock. "He is quite sensitive," commented The Dry Advisor. "Who is he?" "A fellow who once manipulated the money in your wallet but now curses the fellow who does." writing future politics books dubai economic-collapse small-press spy-thriller espionage end-of-the-world conspiracy dystopia authors economics satire maine dystopian-fiction writers Jeff Phillips
be4faff Then all at once our personal and political quarrels were made very abruptly to converge. In the special edition of the published to mark the events of September 11, 2001, Edward painted a picture of an almost fascist America where Arab and Muslim citizens were being daily terrorized by pogroms, these being instigated by men like Paul Wolfowitz who had talked of 'ending' the regimes that sheltered Al Quaeda. Again, I could hardly credit that these sentences were being produced by a cultured person, let alone printed by a civilized publication. politics friendship al-quaeda lrb muslims paul-wolfowitz pogroms quarrel september-11-attacks edward-said united-states fascism arabs Christopher Hitchens
8954bdb Schools were started to train human talents... The Guild... emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs... politics. The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there count be no such continuity without separating human stock from animal stock - for breeding purposes. humanity politics mathematics Frank Herbert
b5d1681 The notion of carefully wrought bullshit involves, then, a certain inner strain. Thoughtful attention to detail requires discipline and objectivity. It entails accepting standards and limitations that forbid the indulgence of impulse or whim. It is this selflessness that, in connection with bullshit, strikes us as inapposite. But in fact it is not out of the question at all. The realms of advertising and of public relations, and the nowadays closely related realm of politics, are replete with instances of bullshit so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept. And in these realms there are exquisitely sophisticated craftsmen who - with the help of advanced and demanding techniques of market research, of public opinion polling, of psychological testing, and so forth - dedicate themselves tirelessly to getting every word and image they produce exactly right. politics craftsmanship marketing Harry G. Frankfurt
8af8b13 Europe has achieved peaceful political union for the first time ever: They're using this unprecedented state of affairs to harmonize the curvature of bananas. politics humor Charles Stross
f93c7aa Diplomacy and virtue do not make easy companions. virtue politics Iain Pears
72ced9d All the methods of appointing authorities that have been tried, divine right, and election, and heredity, and balloting, and assemblies and parliaments and senate--all have proved ineffectual. Everyone knows that not one of these methods attains the aim either of entrusting power only to the incorruptible, or of preventing power from being abused. Everyone knows on the contrary that men in authority--be they emperors, ministers, governors, or police officers--are always, simply from the possession of power, more liable to be demoralized, that is, to subordinate public interests to their personal aims than those who have not the power to do so. Indeed, it could not be otherwise. politics government-corruption authority government power Leo Tolstoy
7fadf2f Why did this [Vietnam] war, so hard, so long, so ferocious, vanish from one day to the next as if by magic? Why did this American defeat (the largest reversal in the history of the USA) have no internal repercussions in America? If it had really signified the failure of the planetary strategy of the United States, it would necessarily have completely disrupted its internal balance and the American political system. war politics vietnam power Jean Baudrillard
c639cb6 Just then, Larry recalled a conversation he had with a friend in Ireland, about the situation in Nepal between the King and the Maoists. The friend was sided with the Maoists, which was more or less his political leanings in any case, and stated that at least they were trying to help the people. So Larry had remarked upon the rising death rate, and how the Maoists are just as brutal as the security forces, yet the friend simply shrugged and said you have to expect some collateral damage in a revolution. Oh how he hates that phrase, as that makes it sound like the people's lives are meant to be expendable, something that a person's life should never be. Of course, it is very easy to disregard people you have never met, and who are certainly not your friends or family members. After all, in the eyes of an outsider, who is in no danger whatsoever, the people caught up in the situation are nothing more than simply statistics. politics maoists people-s-lives revolt Andrew James Pritchard
076e2f3 "Years ago, a member of Congress slipped a laminated quote into my hand that he must have thought I would find meaningful. I paid little attention at first and unfortunately I don't recall just who gave me the quote. I placed it next to my voting card and have carried it ever since. The quote came from Elie Wiesel's book One Generation After. The quote was entitled "Why I Protest." Author Elie Wiesel tells the story of the one righteous man of Sodom, who walked the streets protesting against the injustice of this city. People made fun of him, derided him. Finally, a young person asked: "Why do you continue your protest against evil; can't you see no one is paying attention to you?" He answered, "I'll tell you why I continue. In the beginning, I thought I would change people. Today, I know I cannot. Yet, if I continue my protest, at least I will prevent others from changing me." I'm not that pessimistic that we can't change people's beliefs or that people will not respond to the message of liberty and peace. But we must always be on guard not to let others change us once we gain the confidence that we are on the right track in the search for truth." -- politics confidence truth elie-wiesel ron-paul liberty peace protest Ron Paul
d162751 But liberals love to drape themselves in decades-old glories they had nothing to do with. politics Ann Coulter
6195bd9 Samuel Taylor Coleridge was right when he claimed, 'In politics, what begins in fear usually ends up in folly.' Political activists are more inclined, though, to heed an observation from Richard Nixon: 'People react to fear, not love. They don't teach that in Sunday school, but it's true.' That principle, which guided the late president's political strategy throughout his career, is the sine qua non of contemporary political campaigning. Marketers of products and services ranging from car alarms to TV news programs have taken it to heart as well. The short answer to why Americans harbor so many misbegotten fears is that immense power and money await those who tap into our moral insecurities and supply us with symbolic substitutes. politics fear power irrationality Barry Glassner
e7d3e07 It was one thing to go into battle with friends, and another to perish alone and despised. war politics a-song-of-ice-and-fire george-rr-martin grimdark game-of-thrones middle-ages epic-fantasy George R.R. Martin
9fb6046 "A note on language. Be even more suspicious than I was just telling you to be, of all those who employ the term "we" or "us" without your permission. This is another form of surreptitious conscription, designed to suggest that "we" are all agreed on "our" interests and identity. Populist authoritarians try to slip it past you; so do some kinds of literary critics ("our sensibilities are enraged...") Always ask who this "we" is; as often as not it's an attempt to smuggle tribalism through the customs. An absurd but sinister figure named Ron "Maulana" Karenga--the man who gave us Ebonics and Kwanzaa and much folkloric nationalist piffle--once ran a political cult called "US." Its slogan--oddly catchy as well as illiterate--was "Wherever US is, We are." It turned out to be covertly financed by the FBI, though that's not the whole point of the story. Joseph Heller knew how the need to belong, and the need for security, can make people accept lethal and stupid conditions, and then act as if they had imposed them on themselves." politics surveillance language populism Christopher Hitchens
29d2c62 One of the juiciest pleasures of life is to be able to salute and embrace, as elected leaders and honored representatives, people whom you first met when they were on the run or in exile or (like Adam) in and out of jail. I was to have this experience again, and I hope to have it many more times in the future: it sometimes allows me to feel that life is full of point. politics life dissent Christopher Hitchens
2b695c8 "I became convinced that the advanced industrial countries, through international organizations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the World Bank, were not only not doing all that they could to help these [developing] countries but were sometimes making their life more difficult. IMF programs had clearly worsened the East Asian crisis, and the "shock therapy" they had pushed in the former Soviet Union and its satellites played an important role in the failure of the transition." politics imf Joseph E. Stiglitz
5bb7371 "A note on language. Be even more suspicious than I was just telling you to be, of all those who employ the term "we" or "us" without your permission. This is another form of surreptitious conscription, designed to suggest that "we" are all agreed on "our" interests and identity. Populist authoritarians try to slip it past you; so do some kinds of literary critics ("our sensibilities are enraged...") Always ask who this "we" is; as often as not it's an attempt to smuggle tribalism through the customs. An absurd but sinister figure named Ron "Maulana" Karenga--the man who gave us Ebonics and Kwanzaa and much folkloric nationalist piffle--once ran a political cult called "US." Its slogan--oddly catchy as well as illiterate--was "Wherever US is, We are." It turned out to be covertly financed by the FBI, though that's not the whole point of the story. Joseph Heller knew how the need to belong, and the need for security, can make people accept lethal and stupid conditions, and then act as if they had imposed them on themselves." -- politics surveillance language populism Christopher Hitchens
4faa525 It is not clear who will bring to the Whitehouse those useful commodities of vivid language, a sense of history and most important - a sense of humour, but Johnson himself will provide many other attributes. He is effective precisely because he is so determined, industrious, personal and even humourless, particularly in dealing with Congress. (...) Kennedy had a detached and even donnish willingness to grant a merit in the other fellow's argument. Johnson is not so inclined to retreat and grants nothing in an argument, not even equal time. Ask not what you have done for Lyndon Johnson, but what you have done for him lately. This may not be the most attractive quality of the new administration but it works. The lovers of style are not too happy with the new administration, but the lovers of substance are not complaining. politics lbj lyndon-b-johnson style-substance kennedy Robert A. Caro
87d729a Anyway, I have long had a very definite tendency to tune out the moment I come anywhere near either a pulpit or a soapbox. politics religion speech James Baldwin
ea56e9d As long as we're tied to Middle Eastern oil we're tied to Middle Eastern politics. We're hostages to the terrorists and nutcases who want to wipe out Israel and the United States because we support Israel. politics national-autonomy Ben Bova
9ee0ec0 "He was to become the lawmaker for the poor and the downtrodden and the oppressed. He was to be the bearer of at least a measure of social justice to those whom social justice had so long been denied. The restorer of at least a measure of dignity to those who so desperately needed to be given some dignity. The redeemer of the promises made by them to America. "It is time to write it in the books of law." By the time Lyndon Johnson left office he had done a lot of writing in those books, had become, above all presidents save Lincoln, the codifier of compassion, the president who wrote mercy and justice in the statute books by which America was governed." politics lyndon-b-johnson legislation Robert A. Caro
7db9867 "Yet isn't it all--all of it, every single episode and detail of the Clinton saga--exactly like that? And isn't some of it a little bit more serious? For Sen. Clinton, something is true if it validates the myth of her striving and her 'greatness' (her overweening ambition in other words) and only ceases to be true when it no longer serves that limitless purpose. And we are all supposed to applaud the skill and the bare-faced bravado with which this is done. In the New Hampshire primary in 1992, she knowingly lied about her husband's uncontainable sex life and put him eternally in her debt. This is now thought of, and referred to in print, purely as a smart move on her part. In the Iowa caucuses of 2008, he returns the favor by telling a huge lie about his own record on the war in Iraq, falsely asserting that he was opposed to the intervention from the very start. This is thought of, and referred to in print, as purely a tactical mistake on his part: trying too hard to help the spouse. The happy couple has now united on an equally lies sex politics ambition 2008 expediency hillary-clinton iowa iowa-caucuses new-hampshire new-hampshire-primary self-promotion united-states-elections-2008 bill-clinton iraq iraq-war united-states greatness Christopher Hitchens
36def3c When L.A.'s schizophrenia between Dreamland and Utopia was becoming socially manifest, the United States, which was always a place, went to war with America, which was always an idea. politics government Steve Erickson
06f6e5b Fiction should always steer clear of political considerations. politics Paul Bowles
640a551 This, then, is the dread that seems to lie beneath the fear of equalizing. Equity is seen as dispossession. Local autonomy is seen as liberty--even if the poverty of those in nearby cities robs them of all meaningful autonomy by narrowing their choices to the meanest and the shabbiest of options. In this way, defendants in these cases seem to polarize two of the principles that lie close to the origins of this republic. Liberty and equity are seen as antibodies to each other. politics Jonathan Kozol
8784850 Why should insurance companies continue to get away with limiting the skills that a health profession has always previously required of its members if they were to be considered fully trained? money politics Ina May Gaskin
4194122 "Sometimes I fantasize about the US head of state as a super-lazy, super-moral libertarian despot and think, "That would certainly make everything easier," even though I can't think of one person who'd qualify, except maybe Willie Nelson." politics Chuck Klosterman
6f97cef New Rule: America has every right ot bitch about gas prices suddenly shooting up. How could we have known? Oh, wait, there was that teensy, tiny thing about being warned constantly over the last forty years but still creating more urban sprawl, failing to build public transport, buying gas-guzzlers, and voting for oil company shills. So, New Rule: Shut the fuck up about gas prices. politics humor gas-guzzlers urban-sprawl gas gas-prices oil Bill Maher
9c452ac This revolutionary idea of Western citizenship--replete with ever more rights and responsibilities--would provide superb manpower for growing legions and a legal framework that would guarantee that the men who fought felt that they themselves in a formal and contractual sense had ratified the conditions of their own battle service. The ancient Western world would soon come to define itself by culture rather than by race, skin color, or language. That idea alone would eventually bring enormous advantages to its armies on the battlefield. (p. 122) war politics contract-for-service voluteer-army consent western-culture soldiers warfare civilization government rome Victor Davis Hanson
2f8fb90 In this, then, lies their power of understanding--understanding, without words, what is authentic or inauthentic. Thus it was the grimaces, the histrionisms, the false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of the voice, which rang false for those wordless but immensely sensitive patients. It was to these (for them) most glaring, even grotesque, incongruities and improprieties that my aphasic patients responded, undeceived and undeceivable by words. This is why they laughed at the President's speech. humorous political politics ronald-reagan Oliver Sacks
587827a Modern prophets say that our economics have failed us. No! It is not our economics which have failed; it is man who has failed-man who has forgotten God. Hence no manner of economic or political readjustment can possibly save our civilization; we can be saved only by a renovation of the inner man, only by a purging of our hearts and souls; for only by seeking first the Kingdom of God and His Justice will all these other things be added unto us. politics kingdom-of-god Fulton J. Sheen
ef19ef3 In the eleven months preceding the outbreak of World War II, 211 treaties of peace were signed. Were these treaties of peace written on paper, or were they written on the hearts of men? And we must ask ourselves as we hear of treaties being written today, whether the treaties of the UN are written with the full cognizance of the fact that those who sign them are responsible before God? politics treaties world-war-2 peace Fulton J. Sheen
1cea2db "He was in stature but a small man, yet remember that so were Napoleon, Lord Beaverbrook, Stephen A. Douglas, Frederick the Great, and the Dr. Goebbels who is privily known throughout Germany as "Wotan's Mickey Mouse." politics plutocracy liberal right-wing-politics fascism Sinclair Lewis
7941611 The goal and meaning of individual life (which is the only real life) no longer lie in individual development but in the policy of the State, which is thrust upon the individual from outside and consists in the execution of an abstract idea which ultimately tends to attract all life to itself. politics philosophy truth system welfare the-self state psychology mental-health C.G. Jung
6be11fc The term 'politics of prefiguration' has long been used to describe the idea that if you embody what you aspire to, you have already succeeded. That is to say, if your activism is already democratic, peaceful, creative, then in one small corner of the world these things have triumphed. Activism, in this model, is not only a toolbox to change things but a home in which to take up residence and live according to your beliefs, even if it's a temporary and local place... politics hope Rebecca Solnit
f0ebb25 It would not be an exaggeration to say that the land question in Zimbabwe is the single most decisive one. politics land-reform land-reform-in-zimbabwe prescience zimbabwe land Christopher Hitchens
de133f4 It was a mistake to speak one's mind at any time, unless it perfectly matched your political purpose; and it never did. politics Kim Stanley Robinson
845aecc I believe that, in this country, the press exerts a greater and a more pernicious influence than the church did in its worst period. We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. politics religion Henry David Thoreau
127ad41 Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed. politics hope Rebecca Solnit
fdcb533 Dogma in power does have a unique chilling ingredient not exhibited by power, however ghastly, wielded for its own traditional sake. politics power Christopher Hitchens
1feeb32 Hesitate once, hesitate twice, hesitate a hundred times before employing political standards as a device for the analysis and appreciation of poetry. poetry politics ts-eliot Christopher Hitchens
1a38816 "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness... & politics liberal libertarian progressive conservative selfishness John Kenneth Galbraith
604e1a3 "New Rule: Democrats must get in touch with their inner asshole. I refer to the case of Van Jones, the man the Obama administration hired to find jobs for Americans in the new green industries. Seems like a smart thing to do in a recession, but Van Jones got fired because he got caught on tape saying Republicans are assholes. And they call it news! Now, I know I'm supposed to be all reinjected with yes-we-can-fever after the big health-care speech, and it was a great speech--when Black Elvis gets jiggy with his teleprompter, there is none better. But here's the thing: Muhammad Ali also had a way with words, but it helped enormously that he could also punch guys in the face. It bothers me that Obama didn't say a word in defense of Jones and basically fired him when Glenn Beck told him to. Just like dropped "end-of-life counseling" from health-care reform because Sarah Palin said it meant "death panels" on her Facebook page. Crazy morons make up things for Obama to do, and he does it. Same thing with the speech to schools this week, where the president attempted merely to tell children to work hard and wash their hands, and Cracker Nation reacted as if he was trying to hire the Black Panthers to hand out grenades in homeroom. Of course, the White House immediately capitulated. "No students will be forced to view the speech" a White House spokesperson assured a panicked nation. Isn't that like admitting that the president might be doing something unseemly? What a bunch of cowards. If the White House had any balls, they'd say, "He's giving a speech on the importance of staying in school, and if you jackasses don't show it to every damn kid, we're cutting off your federal education funding tomorrow." The Democrats just never learn: Americans don't really care which side of an issue you're on as long as you When Van Jones called the Republicans assholes, he was paying them a . He was talking about how they can get things done even when they're in the minority, as opposed to the Democrats , who can't seem to get anything done even when they control both houses of Congress, the presidency, and Bruce Springsteen. I love Obama's civility, his desire to work with his enemies; it's positively Christlike. In college, he was probably the guy at the dorm parties who made sure the stoners shared their pot with the jocks. But we don't need that guy now. We need an asshole. Mr. President, there are some people who are never going to like you. That's why they voted for the old guy and Carrie's mom. You're not going to win them over. Stand up for the seventy percent of Americans who aren't crazy. And speaking of that seventy percent, when are we going to actually show up in all this? Tomorrow Glenn Beck's army of zombie retirees descending on Washington. It's the Million Moron March, although they won't get a million, of course, because many will be confused and drive to Washington state--but they will make news. Because people who take to the streets always do. They're at the town hall screaming at the congressman; we're on the couch screaming at the TV. Especially in this age of Twitters and blogs and Snuggies, it's a statement to just leave the house. But leave the house we must, because this is our last best shot for a long time to get the sort of serious health-care reform that would make the United States the envy of several African nations." politics Bill Maher
ea24053 We should stop worrying so much about the of gasoline and start considering its . You really want to be patriotic? Don't change your car by putting a flag on it, change the car. politics gas-prices war-on-terror patriotism Bill Maher
b6d1273 "Yea" might be turned into "Nay" and vice versa if a sufficient quantity of wordage was applied to the matter. The second was that in any argument, the victor is always right, and the third that though the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword speaks louder and stronger at any given moment. - Roger Fenwick, Duke of Grand Fenwick" politics satire government Leonard Wibberley
271b5fb "Well, gentlemen, I have listened to all your Solutions, and I now inform you that I, and I alone, except perhaps for Walt Trowbridge and the ghost of Pareto, have the perfect, the inevitable, the only Solution, and that is: There is no Solution! There will never be a state of society anything like perfect! "There never will be a time when there won't be a large proportion of people who feel poor no matter how much they have, and envy their neighbors who know how to wear cheap clothes showily, and envy their neighbors who can dance or make love or digest better." perfection poverty politics solutions envy society utopia Sinclair Lewis
7d164bb ...seeing everything, yet a part of nothing. war politics a-song-of-ice-and-fire george-rr-martin grimdark game-of-thrones middle-ages epic-fantasy George R.R. Martin
02e0dc7 All plots tend to move deathward. This is the nature of plots. Political plots, terrorist plots, lovers' plots, narrative plots, plots that are part of children's games. We edge nearer death every time we plot. It is like a contract that all must sign, the plotters as well as those who are the targets of the plot. politics love plots narrative plotting terrorism don-delillo white-noise Don DeLillo
d885481 They despite and hate the government more and more, but they don't know how to set about changing it. The country is dying for some sort of lead, and so far all it is getting is a crowd of fresh professional leaders. Who never get anywhere. Who do not seem to be aiming anywhere. We are living in a world of jaded politics. Poverty increases, prices rise, unemployment spreads, mines, factories stagnate, and nothing is done. politics society H.G. Wells
d321185 McChrystal had organized a jaw-dropping counterterrorism campaign inside Iraq, but the tactical successes did not translate into a strategic victory. This was why counterinsurgency - blanketing the population in safety and winning them over - was necessary. war politics obama-s-wars foreign-policy iraq terrorism Bob Woodward
14b3eeb Modern war, modern international hostility is, I believe, possible only through the stupid illiteracy of the mass of men and the conceit and intellectual indolence of rulers and those who feed the public mind. war politics peace-on-earth politicians H.G. Wells
6c787c4 They were Republicans, Nixon Republicans, and so didn't subscribe to the notion that laws are supposed to apply to all people equally. humorous political politics Bill Bryson
1527041 For all its outwardly easy Latin charm, Buenos Aires was making me feel sick and upset, so I did take that trip to the great plains where the epics had been written, and I did manage to eat a couple of the famous : the Argentine barbecue fiesta (once summarized by Martin Amis's John Self as 'a sort of triple mixed grill swaddled in steaks') with its slavish propitiation of the sizzling gods of cholesterol. Yet even this was spoiled for me: my hosts did their own slaughtering and the smell of drying blood from the abattoir became too much for some reason (I actually went 'off' steak for a good few years after this trip). Then from the intrepid Robert Cox of the I learned another jaunty fascist colloquialism: before the South Atlantic dumping method was adopted, the secret cremation of maimed and tortured bodies at the Navy School had been called an . In my youth I was quite often accused, and perhaps not unfairly, of being too politicized and of trying to import politics into all discussions. I would reply that it wasn't my fault if politics kept on invading the private sphere and, in the case of Argentina at any rate, I think I was right. The miasma of the dictatorship pervaded absolutely everything, not excluding the aperitifs and the main course. politics asado dictatorship fascism Christopher Hitchens
951288a Since I was a small girl, I have lived inside this cottage, shelted by its roof and walls. I have known of people suffering--I have not been blind to them in the way that privilege allows, the way my own husband and now my daughter are blind. It is a statement of fact and not a judgement to say Charlie and Ella's minds aren't oriented in that direction; in a way, it absolves them, whereas the unlucky have knocked on the door of my consciousness, they have emerged from the forest and knocked many times over the course of my life, and I have only occasionally allowed them entry. I've done more than nothing and much less than I could have. I have laid inside, beneath a quilt on a comfortable couch, in a kind of reverie, and when I heard the unlucky outside my cottage, sometimes I passed them coins or scraps of food, and sometimes I ignored them altogether; if I ignored them, they had no choice but to walk back into the woods, and when they grew weak or got lost or were circled by wolves, I pretended I couldn't hear them calling my name. empathy politics ethics Curtis Sittenfeld
c5409f9 The brontosaurus had thirty-ton body and a two-ounce brain. The anatosaurus had two thousand teeth. Triceratops had a helmet of filled bone seven feet long. Tyrannosaurus rex had tiny arms and teeth like six-inch razors and it was elected President. It ate everything--dead meat, living meat, old bones-- politics humor John Updike
a290de2 Faced with our addiction to oil, what does our leadership say? Get more of it! Strange when you consider their answer to dependence is to cut off the supply. politics gas-prices analogy dependence oil drugs Bill Maher
e611e1a The main thing is, the constraints have come off style. What we are saying now is that the Revolution does not proceed in a pitiless, forward direction, its politics and its language becoming ever more gross and simplistic: the Revolution is always flexible, subtle, elegant. politics Hilary Mantel
3d99142 We dispute the arbitrary distribution of power and wealth, which is claimed as the natural order, but which is in fact not natural at all but rather artificially created and sustained by ancient privileges. politics Kate Elliott
b3c9227 The Establishment is amassing wealth and aggressively annexing power in a way that has no precedent in modern times. After all, there is nothing to stop it. politics oligarchy the-establishment corporate-greed power Owen Jones
48f1ebe I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist. If that saying doesn't convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will. socialism politics libertarianism republicanism Nassim Nicholas Taleb
b11e9c9 We write history with our feet and with our presece and our collective voice and vision. And yet, of course, everything in the mainstream media suggests that popular resistance is ridiculous, pointless, or criminal, unless it is far away, was long ago, or, ideally, both. These are the forces that prefer the giant remain asleep. history politics inspirational Rebecca Solnit
5ab620c As well as a shared mentality, the Establishment is cemented by financial links and a 'revolving door' culture: that is, powerful individuals gliding between the political, corporate and media worlds - or who manage to inhabit these various worlds at the same time. The terms of political debate are in large part dictated by a media controlled by a small number of exceptionally rich owners, while think tanks and political parties are funded by wealthy individuals and corporate interests. politics the-establishment Owen Jones
37ae7f2 Their grumpiness is often the grumpiness of perfectionists who hold that anything less than total victory is failure, a premise that makes it easy to give up at the start or to disparage the victories that are possible. This is Earth. It will never be heaven. There will always be cruelty, always be violence, always be de- struction. perfection politics pragmatism Rebecca Solnit
2bec0bf The modern Establishment relies on a mantra of 'There Is No Alternative': potential opposition is guarded against by enforcing disbelief in the idea that there is any other viable way of running society. politics society government Owen Jones
ed0971a I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. unity politics law peace obedience Henry David Thoreau
b7a42b0 Stories migrate secretly. The assumption that whatever we now believe is just common sense, or what we always knew, is a way to save face. It's also a way to forget the power of a story and of a storyteller, the power in the margins, and the potential for change. writing politics hope Rebecca Solnit
210e402 What lies ahead seems unlikely; when it becomes the past, it seems inevitable. history politics hope Rebecca Solnit
9e4e895 I'm not jealous of my male colleagues often, but I am when it comes to how they can just shower, shave, put on a suit, and be ready to go. The few times I've gone out in public without makeup, it's made the news. So I sigh and keep getting back in that chair, and dream of a future in which women in the public eye don't need to wear makeup if they don't want to and no one cares either way. women politics Hillary Rodham Clinton
e8786f5 Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it. politics political-systems respect Henry David Thoreau
721900d "If this were a courageous country, it would ask Gloria to lead it since she is sane and funny and beautiful and smart and the National Leaders we've always had are not. When I listen to her talk about women's rights children's rights men's rights I think of the long line of Americans who should have been president, but weren't. Imagine Crazy Horse as president. Sojourner Truth. John Brown. Harriet Tubman. Black Elk or Geronimo. Imagine President Martin Luther King confronting the youthful "Oppie" Oppenheimer. Imagine President Malcolm X going after the Klan. Imagine President Stevie Wonder dealing with the "Truly Needy." Imagine President Shirley Chisholm, Ron Dellums, or Sweet Honey in the Rock dealing with Anything. It is imagining to make us weep with frustration, as we languish under real estate dealers, killers, and bad actors." politics leadership change us united-states-of-america presidents usa leaders united-states Alice Walker
b89ca72 A te inchipui un element necesar in ordinea universului echivaleaza, pentru noi, oamenii cu lecturi serioase, cu ceea ce e superstitia pentru analfabeti. Nu se schimba lumea cu ideile. Persoanele cu putine idei sunt mai putin supuse erorii, se iau dupa ceea ce fac toti si nu deranjeaza pe nimeni, si reusesc, se imbogatesc, ajung la pozitii solide, deputati, oameni cu decoratii, oameni de litere renumiti, academicieni, jurnalisti. Poti sa mai fii nerod cand iti faci asa de bine propriile afaceri? Prostul sunt eu, care am vrut sa ma bat cu morile de vant. politics Umberto Eco
544383b Any factor that breeds polarization will worsen policy, and thus cause lower growth. politics economy growth William Easterly
c681275 There were always people who struggled their way to the top of the heap, no matter how much that heap looked like garbage when seen from the outside. politics power Michelle Sagara West
381549c There's one big difference between the poor and the rich,' Kite says, taking a drag from his cigarette. We are in a pub, at lunch-time. John Kite is always, unless stated otherwise, smoking a fag, in a pub, at lunch-time. 'The rich aren't evil, as so many of my brothers would tell you. I've known rich people -- I have played on their yachts -- and they are not unkind, or malign, and they do not hate the poor, as many would tell you. And they are not stupid -- or at least, not any more than the poor are. Much as I find amusing the idea of a ruling class of honking toffs, unable to put their socks on without Nanny helping them, it is not true. They build banks, and broker deals, and formulate policy, all with perfect competency. 'No -- the big difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich are blithe. They believe nothing can ever really be so bad, They are born with the lovely, velvety coating of blitheness -- like lanugo, on a baby -- and it is never rubbed off by a bill that can't be paid; a child that can't be educated; a home that must be left for a hostel, when the rent becomes too much. 'Their lives are the same for generations. There is no social upheaval that will really affect them. If you're comfortably middle-class, what's the worst a government policy could do? Ever? Tax you at 90 per cent and leave your bins, unemptied, on the pavement. But you and everyone you know will continue to drink wine -- but maybe cheaper -- go on holiday -- but somewhere nearer -- and pay off your mortgage -- although maybe later. 'Consider, now, then, the poor. What's the worst a government policy can do to them? It can cancel their operation, with no recourse to private care. It can run down their school -- with no escape route to a prep. It can have you out of your house and into a B&B by the end of the year. When the middle-classes get passionate about politics, they're arguing about their treats -- their tax breaks and their investments. When the poor get passionate about politics, they're fighting for their lives. 'Politics will always mean more to the poor. Always. That's why we strike and march, and despair when our young say they won't vote. That's why the poor are seen as more vital, and animalistic. No classical music for us -- no walking around National Trust properties, or buying reclaimed flooring. We don't have nostalgia. We don't do yesterday. We can't bear it. We don't want to be reminded of our past, because it was awful; dying in mines, and slums, without literacy, or the vote. Without dignity. It was all so desperate, then. That's why the present and the future is for the poor -- that's the place in time for us: surviving now, hoping for better, later. We live now -- for our instant, hot, fast treats, to prep us up: sugar, a cigarette, a new fast song on the radio. 'You must never, never forget, when you talk to someone poor, that it takes ten times the effort to get anywhere from a bad postcode, It's a miracle when someone from a bad postcode gets anywhere, son. A miracle they do anything at all. politics rich poor government Caitlin Moran
c9a51ff In business, as in politics, the public is ever so tolerant of those who slime. politics Christopher Moore
b4cb66f Government observers, keen on getting the Penan out of the valuable hardwood forests, have claimed that Penan health is poor and that they are malnourished. This is a ploy to get them settled so they can be controlled. Also, it is a source of embarrassment to the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia that in the 1980s, nomadic hunters are still roaming the jungles. This doesn't help the national image of a modern, developing country. politics culture Eric Hansen
dbb617d When everyone's building a fence, isn't it a true fool who lives out in the open? politics community Zadie Smith
f217da5 "New Rule: Conservatives have to stop complaining about Hollywood values. It's Oscar time again, which means two things: (1) I've got to get waxed, and (2) talk-radio hosts and conservative columnists will trot out their annual complaints about Hollywood: We're too liberal; we're out of touch with the Heartland; our facial muscles have been deadened with chicken botulism; and we make them feel fat. To these people, I say: Shut up and eat your popcorn. And stop bitching about one of the few American products--movies---that people all over the world still want to buy. Last year, Hollywood set a new box-office record: $16 billion worldwide. Not bad for a bunch of socialists. You never see Hollywood begging Washington for a handout, like corn farmers, or the auto industry, or the entire state of Alaska. What makes it even more inappropriate for conservatives to slam Hollywood is that they more than anybody lose their shit over any D-lister who leans right to the point that they actually run them for office. Sony Bono? Fred Thompson? And let'snot forget that the modern conservative messiah is a guy who costarred with a chimp. That's right, Dick Cheney. I'm not trying to say that when celebrities are conservative they're almost always lame, but if Stephen Baldwin killed himself and Bo Derrick with a car bomb, the headline the next day would be "Two Die in Car Bombing." The truth is that the vast majority of Hollywood talent is liberal, because most stars adhere to an ideology that jibes with their core principles of taking drugs and getting laid. The liebral stars that the right is always demonizing--Sean Penn and Michael Moore, Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin and Tim Robbins, and all the other members of my biweekly cocaine orgy--they're just people with opinions. None of them hold elective office, and liberals aren't begging them to run. Because we live in the real world, where actors do acting, and politicians do...nothing. We progressives love our stars, but we know better than to elect them. We make the movies here, so we know a well-kept trade secret: The people on that screen are only to be geniuses, astronauts, and cowboys. So please don't hat eon us. And please don't ruin the Oscars. Because honestly, we're just like you: We work hard all year long, and the Oscars are really just our prom night. The tuxedos are scratchy, the limousines are rented, and we go home with eighteen-year-old girls." politics humor Bill Maher
95ff34c Great literature will insist upon its self-sufficiency in the face of the worthiest causes reading politics continuity timelessness Harold Bloom
df87e1d "Here we introduce the nation's first great communications monopolist, whose reign provides history's first lesson in the power and peril of concentrated control over the flow of information. Western Union's man was one Rutherford B. Hates, an obscure Ohio politician described by a contemporary journalist as "a third rate nonentity." But the firm and its partner newswire, the Associated Press, wanted Hayes in office, for several reasons. Hayes was a close friend of William Henry Smith, a former politician who was now the key political operator at the Associated Press. More generally, since the Civil War, the Republican Party and the telegraph industry had enjoyed a special relationship, in part because much of what were eventually Western Union's lines were built by the Union Army. So making Hayes president was the goal, but how was the telegram in Reid's hand key to achieving it? The media and communications industries are regularly accused of trying to influence politics, but what went on in the 1870s was of a wholly different order from anything we could imagine today. At the time, Western Union was the exclusive owner of the nationwide telegraph network, and the sizable Associated Press was the unique source for "instant" national or European news. (It's later competitor, the United Press, which would be founded on the U.S. Post Office's new telegraph lines, did not yet exist.) The Associated Press took advantage of its economies of scale to produce millions of lines of copy a year and, apart from local news, its product was the mainstay of many American newspapers. With the common law notion of "common carriage" deemed inapplicable, and the latter day concept of "net neutrality" not yet imagined, Western Union carried Associated Press reports exclusively. Working closely with the Republican Party and avowedly Republican papers like The New York Times (the ideal of an unbiased press would not be established for some time, and the minting of the Time's liberal bona fides would take longer still), they did what they could to throw the election to Hayes. It was easy: the AP ran story after story about what an honest man Hayes was, what a good governor he had been, or just whatever he happened to be doing that day. It omitted any scandals related to Hayes, and it declined to run positive stories about his rivals (James Blaine in the primary, Samuel Tilden in the general). But beyond routine favoritism, late that Election Day Western Union offered the Hayes campaign a secret weapon that would come to light only much later. history politics information corporations media democracy technology Timothy Wu
8b6996b Terrorism has made our world an integrated community in a new and frightening way. Not merely the activities of our neighbors, but those of the inhabitants of the most remote mountain valleys of the farthest-flung countries of our planet, have become our business. We need to extend the reach of the criminal law there and to have the means to bring terrorists to justice without declaring war on an entire country in order to do it. For this we need a sound global system of criminal justice, so justice does not become the victim of national differences of opinion. We also need, though it will be far more difficult to achieve, a sense that we really are one community, that we are people who recognize not only the force of prohibitions against killing each other but also the pull of obligations to assist one another. This may not stop religious fanatics from carrying out suicide missions, but it will help to isolate them and reduce their support. politics philosophy political-philosophy Peter Singer
eb7803b When I was an activist in the 1980s, ninety-eight percent of my time was spent stuffing envelopes and writing addresses on them. The remaining two percent was the time we spent figuring out what to put in the envelopes. Today, we get those envelopes and stamps and address books for free. This is so fantastically, hugely different and weird that we haven't even begun to feel the first tendrils of it. history politics computers Cory Doctorow
eede534 If we don't start caring about whether people tell the truth or not, it's going to be literally impossible to restore anything approaching reasonable political discourse. politics Al Franken
a8a20eb Then, the massive hands lifted the new people up to a pair of giant indescribable lips and whispered, in a fundamentally untranslatable Creator-language, something that meant, approximately: THIS TIME, BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER. REMEMBER: EACH OF YOU WANTS TO BE HAPPY. AND I WANT YOU TO. EACH OF YOU WANTS TO LIVE FREE FROM FEAR. AND I WANT YOU TO. EACH OF YOU ARE SECRETLY AFRAID YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH. BUT YOU ARE, TRUST ME, YOU ARE. kindness politics fear election satire George Saunders
d3afe94 We find the same situation in the economy. On the one hand, the battered remnants of production and the real economy; on the other, the circulation of gigantic amounts of virtual capital. But the two are so disconnected that the misfortunes which beset that capital - stock market crashes and other financial debacles - do not bring about the collapse of real economies any more. It is the same in the political sphere: scandals, corruption and the general decline in standards have no decisive effects in a split society, where responsibility (the possibility that the two parties may respond to each other) is no longer part of the game. This paradoxical situation is in a sense beneficial: it protects civil society (what remains of it) from the vicissitudes of the political sphere, just as it protects the economy (what remains of it) from the random fluctuations of the Stock Exchange and international finance. The immunity of the one creates a reciprocal immunity in the other - a mirror indifference. Better: real society is losing interest in the political class, while nonetheless availing itself of the spectacle. At last, then, the media have some use, and the 'society of the spectacle' assumes its full meaning in this fierce irony: the masses availing themselves of the spectacle of the dysfunctionings of representation through the random twists in the story of the political class's corruption. All that remains now to the politicians is the obligation to sacrifice themselves to provide the requisite spectacle for the entertainment of the people. politics philosophy Jean Baudrillard
a8bfa17 "He wondered why he cared so desperately about the fate of his adopted country and others seemingly so little. "To see the character of the government and the country so sported with, exposed to so indelible a blot, puts my heart to the torture. Am I then more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American ground? Or what is it that thus torments me at a circumstance so calmly viewed by almost everybody else? Am I a fool, a romantic Quixote, or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind? Were it not for yourself and a few others, I . . . would say . . . there is something in our climate which belittles every animal, human or brute. . . . I disclose to you without reserve the state of my mind. It is discontented and gloomy in the extreme. I consider the cause of good government as having been put to an issue and the verdict against it." idealism politics government patriotism Ron Chernow
6b1a045 "We long ago ceased expecting that a President speak his own words. We no longer expect him actually to know the answers to questions put to him. We have, in effect, come to elect newscasters-and by a similar process: not for their probity or for their intelligence, but for their "believability." "Hope" is a very different exhortation than, for example, save, work, cooperate, sacrifice, think. It means: "Hope for the best, in a process over which you have no control." For, if one had control, if one could endorse a candidate with actual, rational programs, such a candidate demonstrably possessed of character and ability sufficient to offer reasonable chance of carrying these programs out, we might require patience or understanding, but why would we need hope? We have seen the triumph of advertising's bluntest and most ancient tool, the unquantifiable assertion: "New" in what way? "Improved" how? "Better" than what? "Change" what in particular? "Hope" for what? These words, seemingly of broad but actually of no particular meaning, are comforting in a way similar to the self-crafted wedding ceremony. Whether or not a spouse is "respecting the other's space," is a matter of debate; whether or not he is being unfaithful is a matter of discernible fact. The author of his own marriage vows is like the supporter of the subjective assertion. He is voting for codependence. He neither makes nor requires an actual commitment. He'd simply like to "hope." politics tyranny-of-cliches obama David Mamet
1d6f3cc I have tried to write about politics in an allusive manner that draws upon other interests and to approach literature and criticism without ignoring the political dimension. Even if I have failed in this synthesis, I have found the attempt worth making. literature politics Christopher Hitchens
279ceb2 There is a sort of aesthetic poverty about conservatism politics conservatism Alan Hollinghurst
13413e6 Create or arouse such unbridled forces and you built carnal fantasies of enormous complexity. You could lead whole populations around by their desires, by their fantasy projections. myth politics fantasy drives urges projection power Frank Herbert
5bc4daf Revolution from above, in some states and cases, is [...] often preferable to the status quo, or to no revolution at all. politics iraq-war neoconservatism revolution Christopher Hitchens
1056617 This is not our fight,' the old man said. 'British or American, that is not the choice. You must choose your own side, find your road through the valley of darkness that will lead you to the river Jordan. slavery politics american-revolution choices Laurie Halse Anderson
2862f83 What came in the end was only a small war and a quick victory; when the farmers and the gentlemen finally did coalesce in politics, they produced only the genial reforms of Progressivism; and the man on the white horse turned out to be just a graduate of the Harvard boxing squad, equipped with an immense bag of platitudes, and quite willing to play the democratic game. politics progressivism reform populism Richard Hofstadter
b33c613 When she was pregnant with her second child, a midwife asked if Catherine had any unspoken fears about anything that could go wrong with the baby - such as genetic defects or complications during the birth. My sister said, 'My only fear is that he might grow up to become a Republican. politics pregnancy Elizabeth Gilbert
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