Quotes About Politics

The "political revolution" that Bernie Sanders called for, rightly, would not have greatly surprised Dwight Eisenhower. What that means is the spectrum has shifted so far to the right that what the population wants, and what was once mainstream, now looks radical and extremist.

Anybody who wants to be President, you should right away say, I don't want to hear that guy anymore. WOMAN: I'm sorry? You should say, I don't want to listen to that person anymore. Anybody who wants to become your leader, you should say, I don't want to follow. That's like a rule of thumb which almost never fails.

I started with reading Chomsky and slowly became very interested in anything that had to do with Israel/Palestine. Reading Edward Said, Mahmoud Darwish, Ghassan Kanafani, John Berger, Tanya Reinhart, Ilan Pappé, Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Kurt Vonnegut, Arundhati Roy, Naomi Klein . . . all became part of my daily routine.

these six corporations, and more precisely, the key decision makers within them, set the boundaries on acceptable debate on what's socially, politically, economically possible. They make their decisions on those things based on profit maximization, both short and long term. If you think they're making their decisions on anything else, you are mistaken.

Si nos tomamos la molestia de distinguir realidad y doctrina en el sistema neoliberal, encontramos, en suma, que los principios políticos y económicos vigentes en la realidad son muy diferentes a los que se proclaman.

THERE'S ALWAYS A CLASS WAR GOING ON

An enemy combatant can be anyone that the US chooses to attack, with no credible evidence, as Washington concedes.

one is tempted to believe that some people in the White House worship Aztec gods—with the offering of Central American blood.

The studies of Larry Bartels and other political scientists show that working people and the poor tend to do somewhat better under Democratic than Republican administrations. But that just means that the Republicans are deeper in the pockets of the corporate system than the Democrats are. They're both nuzzled there quite happily.

Di solito, più si sente la necessità di parlare degli ideali della democrazia, meno democratico è il sistema.

Si la escuela fuera verdaderamente democrática, no sería necesario adoctrinar con tópicos sobre la democracia.

The planned elections seem "more designed for the consumption of US Congress and world opinion than for the Guatemalan people."69

Both parties have moved to the right during the neoliberal period of the past generation. Mainstream Democrats are now pretty much what used to be called "moderate Republicans." Meanwhile, the Republican Party has largely drifted off the spectrum, becoming what respected conservative political analyst Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein call a "radical insurgency" that has virtually abandoned normal parliamentary politics. With

however, is that there is no alternative. Communist societies, social democracies, and even modest social welfare states like the United States have all failed, the neoliberals proclaim, and their citizens have accepted neoliberalism as the only feasible course.

truisms at least have the merit of being true, which distinguishes them from a good deal of political discourse. And

appeal to non-business interests) and let them be effective. Although there is marked and frequently observed dissatisfaction with the Republicans and Democrats, electoral politics is one area where notions of competition and free choice have little meaning.

An Egyptian writer added that 'living in a country with an atrocious human rights record that also happens to be strategically vital to US interests is an illuminating lesson in moral hypocrisy and political double standards.

Terrorism, he said is 'a reaction to the injustice in the region's domestic politics, inflicted in large part by the US.

Chomsky also reveals how neoliberalism is hardly a new thing, but merely the current version of the battle for the wealthy few to circumscribe the political rights and civic powers of the many. Chomsky

that the Kremlin does not serve the interests of the peoples of the world, but makes them serve its own interests; that, with a treachery and hypocrisy without parallel, it makes use of the international working class as a mere pawn in its political intrigues.

It is noteworthy that the pro-Israeli lobby was established, according to the declared aims of its founder, to eliminate pro-Arab influence in the State Department. This particular mission was accomplished, it seems, not so much by the lobby's effort as by the successful endeavors of the Christian Zionists.

No, there is no real Left now. If you are just counting heads, there are probably more people involved than in the 1960s, but they are atomized, committed to different special interests—gay rights, environmental rights, this, that. They don't coalesce into a movement that can really do things.

So these six corporations, and more precisely, the key decision makers within them, set the boundaries on acceptable debate on what's socially, politically, economically possible.

how much time and energy is devoted, and not to the issues that the candidates are raising, but simply to their relative strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis their electability: the personalities, the horse race, not the issues and so forth.