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William Blum Quotes

William Blum is an American author, historian, and critic of United States foreign policy. He worked in a computer related position at the United States Department of State in the mid-1960s. Initially an anti-communist with dreams of becoming a foreign service officer, he became disillusioned by the Vietnam War. He lives in Washington, DC.

✵ 6. March 1933 – 9. December 2018  •  Other names ويليام بلوم, 威廉·布朗
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William Blum: 17 quotes19 likes

Famous William Blum Quotes

“For more than 70 years, the United States convinced much of the world that.. it somehow needed the United States to save it from communist darkness. "Just buy our weapons," said Washington, "let our military and our corporations roam freely across your land, and give us veto power over who your leaders will be, and we'll protect you."”

William Blum book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

third edition (2006), p. 1
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

“Title 18 of the US Code declares it to be a crime to launch a "military or naval expedition or enterprise" from the United States against a country with which the United States is not (officially) at war.”

William Blum

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Chapter 30. Cuba 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution

“The "trickle-down" theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.”

William Blum

“There have also been cases where the United States, while (perhaps) not interfering in the election process, was, however, involved in overthrowing a democratically-elected government, such as in Iran 1953, Guatemala 1954, the Congo 1960, Ecuador 1961, Bolivia 1964, Greece 1967, and Fiji 1987.”

William Blum book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

third edition (2006), p. 286
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

“No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.”

William Blum book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

“Between 1945 and 2005 the United States has attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the U. S. caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.”

William Blum book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

third edition (2006), p. 1-2
Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

“These actions were not always carried out on the direct order of the CIA or with its foreknowledge, but the Agency could hardly plead "rogue elephant."”

William Blum

It had created an operations headquarters in Miami that was truly a state within a city—over, above, and outside the laws of the United States, not to mention international law, with a staff of several hundred Americans directing many more Cuban agents in just such types of actions, with a budget in excess of $50 million a year, and an arrangement with the local press to keep operations in Florida secret except when the CIA wanted something publicized.
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Chapter 30. Cuba 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution

“The word "communist" (as well as "Marxist") has been so overused and so abused by American leaders and the media as to render it virtually meaningless.”

William Blum

The Left has done the same to the word "fascist".
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Introduction

William Blum Quotes about the world

“We can say that the United States runs the world like the Taliban ran Afghanistan. Cuba is dealt with like a woman caught outside not wearing her burkha. Horrific sanctions are imposed on Iraq in the manner of banning music, dancing, and kite-flying in Kabul. Jean-Bertrand Aristide is banished from Haiti like the religious police whipping a man whose beard is not the right length.”

William Blum

Introduction to Freeing the World to Death

“This, then, was the American people's first experience of a new social phenomenon that had come upon the world, their introductory education about the Soviet Union and this thing called "communism."”

William Blum

The students have never recovered from the lesson. Neither has the Soviet Union.
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Introduction

“To the mind carefully brought to adulthood in the United States, the truths of anticommunism are self-evident, as self-evident as the flatness of the world once was to an earlier mind...”

William Blum

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Introduction

“By the end of the Second World War, every American past the age of 40 had been subjected to some 25 years of anti-communist radiation, the average incubation period needed to produce a malignancy. Anti-communism had developed a life of its own.”

William Blum

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Introduction

“During the period between the two world wars, US gunboat diplomacy operated in the Caribbean to make "The American Lake" safe for the fortunes...”

William Blum

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Introduction

“Washington knows no heresy in the Third World but independence. In the case of Salvador Allende independence came clothed in an especially provocative costume—a Marxist constitutionally elected who continued to honor the constitution. This would not do. It shook the very foundation stones upon which the anti-communist tower is built: the doctrine, painstakingly cultivated for decades, that "communists" can take power only through force and deception, that they can retain that power only through terrorizing and brainwashing the population. There could be only one thing worse than a Marxist in power—an elected Marxist in power.”

William Blum

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Chapter 34. Chile 1964-1973: A hammer and sickle stamped on your child's forehead

William Blum Quotes about homeland

“If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize -- very publicly and very sincerely -- to all the widows and the orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. I would then announce that America's global interventions -- including the awful bombings -- have come to an end. And I would inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but – oddly enough – a foreign country. I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims and repair the damage from the many American bombings and invasions. There would be more than enough money. Do you know what one year of the US military budget is equal to? One year. It's equal to more than $20,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born. That's what I'd do on my first three days in the White House. On the fourth day, I'd be assassinated.”

William Blum

"War against terrorism or expansion of the American Empire?" http://web.archive.org/20030228000339/members.aol.com/bblum6/speech.htm

“Cuba had become what Washington had always feared from the Third World—a good example. Parallel to the military and economic belligerence, the United States has long maintained a relentless propaganda offensive against Cuba. A number of examples of this occurring in other countries can be found in other chapters of this book. In addition to its vast overseas journalistic empire, the CIA has maintained anti-Castro news-article factories in the United States for decades.”

William Blum

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Chapter 30. Cuba 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution

“What undoubtedly was an even more sensitive venture was the use of chemical and biological weapons against Cuba by the United States....The full extent of American chemical and biological warfare against Cuba will never be known. Over the years, the Castro government has in fact blamed the United States for a number of other plagues which afflicted various animals and crops. And in 1977, newly-released CIA documents disclosed that the Agency "maintained a clandestine anti-crop warfare research program targeted during the 1960s at a number of countries..."”

William Blum

Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Chapter 30. Cuba 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution

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