Quotes About Government

Unfortunately, you can't vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place

If you abandon the political arena, somebody is going to be there. Corporations aren't going to go home and join the PTA. They are going to run things.

When the NSA's surveillance program was exposed by Edward Snowden's revelations, high officials claimed that it had prevented fifty-four terrorist acts. On inquiry, that was whittled down to a dozen. A high-level government panel then discovered that there was actually only one case: someone had sent $8,500 to Somalia. That was the total yield of the huge assault on the Constitution and, of course, on others throughout the world.

the distinguished Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington, in his text American Politics, observes that power must remain invisible if it is to be effective: "The architects of power in the United States must create a force that can be felt but not seen. Power remains strong when it remains in the dark; exposed to the sunlight it begins to evaporate.

Governments are bigger than ever, but under neoliberalism they have far less pretense to being concerned with addressing non-corporate interests. And

Aristotle was right—the way to overcome the paradox of democracy is by reducing inequality, not reducing democracy.

A democracy is a system in which you are free to do whatever you like as long as you do what we tell you.

Rand Paul...said national health insurance is slavery. He said, I'm a physician, and if there's national health insurance, the government is forcing me to take care of somebody who is ill. Why should I be a slave to the state? Here we're getting capitalist pathology in its most extreme, lunatic form. It is the opposite of solidarity, mutual support, mutual help.

counterinsurgency"—a standard term for terrorism that we direct.

The rise of multinational corporations that know neither patriotism nor morality but only self-interest, has made accountability almost non-existent. At virtually every level, I discern a demand by business for docile government and unrestrained corporate individualism. Where industry once yearned for subservient unions, it now wants no unions at all.

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

The basic function of the FBI is not to stop crime. Rather, it functions as a political police, in large measure.

Classical liberalism was wrecked on the shoals of capitalism, but

From Ferguson to Athens, via Mexico, it is clear that many governments are reproducing the tools that Israel uses to repress and oppress the Palestinians. The replication of those same tactics, methods, and often weapons serves as proof that the Palestinians are now used as guinea pigs for experimentation.

Unfortunately, you can't vote the rascals out, because you never voted them in, in the first place. The corporate executives and the corporation lawyers and so on who overwhelmingly staff the executive, assisted increasingly by a university based mandarin class, remain in power no matter whom you elect.

in every modern economy, the taxpayers are made to subsidize the private corporations, who then keep the profits for themselves.

See, one of the serious illusions we live under in the United States, which is a major part of the whole system of indoctrination, is the idea that the government is the power?and the government's not the power, the government is one segment of power. Real power is in the hands of the people who own the society; the state-managers are usually just servants.

If you want to traumatize people, treason trials are an extreme way—if there are spies running around in our midst, then we're really in trouble, we'd better just listen to the government and stop thinking.

they do not hate us, but rather the policies of our government...

Well, we happen to have a huge rabid raccoon running around—it's called corporations. And there is nothing in the society right now that can protect people from that tyranny, except the federal government. Now, it doesn't protect them very well, because mostly it's run by the corporations, but still it does have some limited effect—it can enforce regulatory measures

The selection of issues that should rank high on the agenda of concern for human welfare and rights is, naturally, a subjective matter. But there are a few choices that seems unavoidable, because they bear so directly on the prospects for decent survival. Among them are at least these three: nuclear war, environmental disaster, and the fact that the government of the world's leading power is acting in ways that increase the likelihood of these catastrophes.

Take a look at the polls. The public overwhelmingly supports higher taxes on the wealthy, which have declined sharply in this period of stagnation and decline—higher taxes on the wealthy and preserve the limited social benefits.

a profligate government that is slipping away from those with rightful claims and into the hands of freeloaders happy to depend on welfare handouts. This is the interpretation that the Tea Party makes, and I would say it's the interpretation that the Trump administration makes to a very large extent. This is what's gone wrong with the country. People have cut in line in front of the deserving citizenry.

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.