Quotes about homeland
page 65

Shimon Peres photo

“Iran is a great problem, but not necessarily a great country. In fact, I think it is a very weak country.”

Shimon Peres (1923–2016) Israeli politician, 8th prime minister and 9th president of Israel

As quoted in "Israel's Shimon Peres Calls Iran Weak", Comcast (29 November 2006) http://www.comcast.net/news/international/index.jsp?cat=INTERNATIONAL&fn=/2006/11/29/531290.html

Boris Yeltsin photo

“Storm clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country… They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.”

Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007) 1st President of Russia and Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR

Appeal to citizens of Russia to oppose the 1991 coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev. (19 August 1991)
1990s

Jerry Springer photo

“The Statue of Liberty means everything. We take it for granted today. We take it for granted. Remember the Statue of Liberty stands for what America is. We as Democrats have to remind ourselves and remind the country the great principles we stand for. This is a place of protection. This is not a country of bullies. We are not an empire. We are the light. We are the Statue of Liberty.”

Jerry Springer (1944) American television presenter, former lawyer, politician, news presenter, actor, and musician

Speech given January 2003.
This American Life http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/04/258.html, Ep. 258, 01/30/04, Leaving the Fold; Act One.

Georgy Zhukov photo
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston photo
Joni Madraiwiwi photo
Colin Powell photo
Sharron Angle photo
Dick Gregory photo
Assata Shakur photo
Dwight D. Eisenhower photo
Hank Green photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Zail Singh photo
Roy Jenkins photo

“Several fallacies have been accepted too freely recently about the position of our manufacturing industry in the balance of our economy. The biggest fallacy is the view that salvation lies in services, and only in services. The corollary to that is that it is inevitable and desirable that over the past two decades there has been a reduction of nearly 3 million in employment in manufacturing industry. That is a massive reduction and represents nearly 40 per cent. of the total in manufacturing industry over that time. I do not believe that that should have been the case. That has been precipitate and dangerous and it has not been associated with an increase in productivity which has led to our maintaining our relative manufacturing position…I have come increasingly to the view that the Government stand back too much from industry. In my experience, they do so more than any other Government in the European Community. They do so more than the United States Government. We have to remember the vast US defence involvement in industry. They certainly stand back more than do the Japanese Government. To some extent, the motive is the feeling that we have had an uncompetitive and rather complacent industry which must be exposed to the full blasts of competition, and if that means contracts, even Government contracts, going overseas, we should shrug our shoulders and say that the wind should be stimulating. That process has been carried much further in Britain than in any other comparable rival country. I am resolutely opposed to protectionism. I am sure that it diminishes the employment and wealth-creating capacity of the world as a whole. That would be the result of plunging back into that policy. I also believe, however, that this totally arm's-length approach in the relationship between Government and industry is something that no other comparable Government contemplate to the extent that we do. It is not producing good results for British industry and it is a recipe for a further decline in Britain's position in the Western world. The Government should examine it carefully and reverse it in several important respects.”

Roy Jenkins (1920–2003) British politician, historian and writer

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1986/jul/07/future-of-manufacturing-industry in the House of Commons (7 July 1986).
1980s

Stephen Miller photo
Yusuf Qaradawi photo
Joseph Strutt photo
William Morris photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
Calvin Coolidge photo

“In dealing with our military problems there is one principle that is exceedingly important. Our institutions are founded not on military power but on civil authority. We are irrevocably committed to the theory of a government by the people. We have our constitutions and our laws, our executives, our legislatures, and our courts, but ultimately we are governed by public opinion. Our forefathers had seen so much of militarism, and suffered so much from it, that they desired to banish it forever. They believed and declared in at least one of their State constitutions that the military power should be subordinate to and governed by the civil authority. It is for this reason that any organization of men in the military service bent on inflaming the public mind for the purpose of forcing Government action through the pressure of public opinion is an exceedingly dangerous undertaking and precedent. This is so whatever form it might take, whether it be for the purpose of influencing the Executive, the legislature, or the heads of departments. It is for the civil authority to determine what appropriations shall be granted, what appointments shall be made, and what rules shall be adopted for the conduct of its armed forces. Whenever the military power starts dictating to the civil authority, by whatsoever means adopted, the liberties of the country are beginning to end. National defense should at all times be supported, but any form of militarism should be resisted.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Vladimir Lenin photo

“The bourgeoisie incites the workers of one nation against those of another in the endeavor to keep them disunited. Class-conscious workers, realising that the break-down of all the national barriers by capitalism is inevitable and progressive, are trying to help to enlighten and organise their fellow-workers from the backward countries.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

"Capitalism and Workers’ Immigration", in Za Pravdu No. 22 (29 October 1913) http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/oct/29.htm; Collected Works, Vol. 24.
1910s

Clarence Thomas photo
Jeremiah Denton photo
Christine O'Donnell photo

“Eric Nies: You're going to stop the whole country from having sex?
Christine O'Donnell: Yeah. Yeah!
Eric Nies: You're living on a prayer if you think that's going to happen.
Christine O'Donnell: That's not true. I'm a young woman in my thirties and I remain chaste.”

Christine O'Donnell (1969) American Tea Party politician and former Republican Party candidate

2010-09-23
Television series
Scarborough Country
MSNBC
Jason
Linkins
Christine O'Donnell Will Stop America From Sexing Each Other (Video)
The Huffington Post
2010-09-24
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/24/christine-odonnell-will-s_n_738276.html
2010-10-20
to Eric Nies of the Moment of Hope Foundation
TV appearances

William Ewart Gladstone photo
Stephen Harper photo
Andrey Illarionov photo
Clive Barker photo
Bill Moyers photo

“Standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.”

Bill Moyers (1934) American journalist

Speech at the National Conference on Media Reform (15 May 2005) http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0516-34.htm

Halldór Laxness photo
Amir Taheri photo
Alfred de Zayas photo

“In totalitarian States citizen have no voice. In democratic countries, however, citizens bear responsibility for the decisions taken by their democratically elected officials. If crimes are committed in their name, it is their responsibility to demand accountability.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

2015, Report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council
Source: Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order exploring the adverse impacts of military expenditures on the realization of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx.

Robert E. Howard photo
Margaret Cho photo
Enoch Powell photo
Robert F. Kennedy photo
Salwa Bugaighis photo
William Morris photo
Bernie Sanders photo
Freeman Dyson photo
Joseph Chamberlain photo
David Silverman photo
Rajiv Gandhi photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Henry Moore photo
Alan Keyes photo
Warren Farrell photo
John Ramsay McCulloch photo
James Wilde, 1st Baron Penzance photo
Benjamin Franklin photo

“I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country; he is a bird of bad moral character; like those among men who live by sharping and robbing, he is generally poor, and often very lousy. The turkey is a much more respectable bird.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

letter to Sarah Bache (26 January 1784).
Epistles

Austen Chamberlain photo
Sheikh Hasina photo

“No people in any region would remain neglected... development of each and every person is important for the real and balanced development of the country.”

Sheikh Hasina (1947) Prime Minister of Bangladesh

During a prees conference while she was awarding scholarship among meritorious students of minor ethnic communities of the plain land at Prime Minister's Office (17 May 2017). http://www.thedailystar.net/country-bangladesh-prime-minister-sheikh-hasina-says-no-one-would-remain-neglected-1406587

Sam Harris photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“David Brody: Radical Islam: to Evangelicals, this is a bread and butter issue. You said there's a Muslim problem in this country. What do you mean by that exactly?
Donald Trump: Bill O'Reilly asked me is there a Muslim problem? And I said absolutely, yes. In fact I went a step further. I said I didn't see Swedish people knocking down the World Trade Center. It was very interesting. I thought that was going to be a controversial statement and somebody, I think it was Dennis Miller introduced me, he was doing like an analysis of me, he said, I love it. The guy said what the truth is. He didn't mince his words. He didn't say, 'Oh, gee, no there's not a Muslim problem, everybody's wonderful.' And by the way, many, many, most Muslims are wonderful people, but is there a Muslim problem? Look what's happening. Look what happened right here in my city with the World Trade Center and lots of other places. So I said it and I thought it was going to be very controversial but actually it was very well received. I think people want the truth. I think they're tired of politicians. They're tired of politically correct stuff. I mean I could have said, 'Oh absolutely not Bill, there's no Muslim problem, everything is wonderful, just forget about the World Trade Center.' But you have to speak the truth. We're so politically correct that this country is falling apart.
Brody: With some evangelicals there are some problems with the teachings of the Koran. Do you have concerns about the Koran?
Trump: Well, I'll tell you what. The Koran is very interesting. A lot of people say it teaches love and there is a very big group of people who really understand the Koran far better than I do. I'm certainly not an expert, to put it mildly. But there's something there that teaches some very negative vibe. I mean things are happening, when you look at people blowing up all over the streets that are in some of the countries over in the Middle East, just blowing up a super market with not even soldiers, just people, when 250 people die in a super market that are shopping, where people die in a store or in a street. There's a lot of hatred there that's some place. Now I don't know if that's from the Koran. I don't know if that's from some place else. But there's tremendous hatred out there that I've never seen anything like it. So, you have two views. You have the view that the Koran is all about love and then you have the view that the Koran is, that there's a lot of hate in the Koran.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

On CBN News' "The Brody File" (12 April 2011) ( video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWzDAvemJG8) ( transcript http://blogs.cbn.com/thebrodyfile/archive/2011/04/12/brody-file-exclusive-donald-trump-says-something-in-koran-teaches.aspx)
2010s, 2011

Heather Brooke photo
Zbigniew Brzeziński photo
Harry Truman photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“There's a plot in this country to enslave every man, woman, and child. Before I leave this high and noble office, I intend to expose this plot. - President John F. Kennedy 7 days before his assassination”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

a fake quote debunked on several websites, including metabunk.org https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-theres-a-plot-in-this-country-to-enslave-every-man-woman-and-child-jfk.t319/
Misattributed

Benjamin Stanton photo
Alberto Gonzales photo

“Torture is not tolerated by this country on the battlefield or off. Anyone who tortures or abuses a detainee tarnishes the service of every honorable student and soldier in this room today. The President has said this, and I will say it again: those who commit torture in the name of the United States government will be prosecuted. In any discussion of Guantanamo, detainees and military commissions, I think that one final fact helps put things in perspective — and that is the fact that members of al Qaeda are not merely common criminals. Some critics around the world have argued that they are “just” criminals, that their crimes somehow do not amount to war crimes. But here are the facts: al Qaeda seeks to employ weapons of mass slaughter as a means of achieving political goals against both the civilian and military capacity of the United States, Europe, and our allies throughout the world. Its members continue to fight our Armed Forces on battlefields around the world, and they will continue to do so until we stop them. Al Qaeda has committed acts on a scale that transcends mere crime, as recognized by NATO immediately after the attacks of September 11th. Their crimes are therefore nothing less than war crimes. Given the magnitude of the atrocities al Qaeda has committed, there can be no comparison between the crimes of its members and that of common civilian criminals.”

Alberto Gonzales (1955) 80th United States Attorney General

Speech regarding Civil Liberties and the War on Terrorism (November 20, 2006)

Dries van Agt photo
Syama Prasad Mookerjee photo
Anton Chekhov photo

“When the country is occupied and the people are being killed by the enemy, everyone must take action, even if he sacrifices himself in so doing.”

Ahmed Sheikh (1949) Palestinian journalist

On Palestinian suicide bombings.
Source: World Politics Watch http://www.worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=395, 7 December 2006.

Jim Webb photo
Slavoj Žižek photo

“[A] paradox arises at the level of the subject's relationship to the community to which he belongs: the situation of the forced choice consists in the fact that the subject must freely choose the community to which he already belongs, independent of his choice - he must choose what is already given to him… The subject who thinks he can avoid this paradox and really have a free choice is a psychotic subject, one who retains a kind of distance from the symbolic order - who is not really caught in the signifying network. The totalitarian subject is closer to this psychotic position: the proof would be the status of the enemy in totalitarian distance (the Jew in Fascism, the traitor in Stalinism) - precisely the subject supposed to have made a free choice and to have freely chosen the wrong side. This is also the basic paradox of love: not only of one's country, but also of a woman or a man. If I am directly ordered to love a woman, it is clear that this does not work: in a way, love must be free. But on the other hand, if I proceed as if I really have a free choice, if I start to look around and say to myself 'Let's choose which of these women I will fall in love with,' it is clear that this also does not work, that it is not real love. The paradox of love is that it is a free choice, but a choice which never arrives in the present - it is always already made …I can only state retroactively that I've already chosen … [Stated by Kant], 'Wickedness does not simply depend upon circumstances but is an integral part of his eternal nature.”

In other words, wickedness appears to be something which is irreducibly given: the person in question can never change it, outgrow it via his ultimate moral development.
186-187
The Sublime Object of Ideology (1989)

Allen C. Guelzo photo
Dennis Kucinich photo
Thomas Robert Malthus photo
Willem de Kooning photo
Adam Smith photo
Lavrentiy Beria photo

“If we can effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation, we will have won that country. Therefore we must continue propaganda abroad to undermine the loyalty of citizens in general and of teen-agers in particular.”

Lavrentiy Beria (1899–1953) Georgian Soviet NKVD police chief under fellow Georgian and Soviet leader Stalin

Brain-Washing: A Synthesis of the Russian Textbook on Psychopolitics

Will Eisner photo
Abdollah Javadi-Amoli photo
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay photo

“There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.”

"Essay on Ludwig von Ranke's 'History of the Popes', in "Critical and Historical Essays", iii, (London; Longman, 7th Edn. 1952), 100-1.
Attributed

John McCain photo
Bassel Khartabil photo

“activists who think they are making changes in their countries are not. the people on the ground are the ones who make that #Syria”

Bassel Khartabil (1981–2015) free culture and democracy activist, Syrian political prisoner

Tweet Jan 31, 2012, 6:29AM https://twitter.com/basselsafadi/status/164354595982819329 at Twitter.com

Ricardo Sanchez photo
Dorothy Wordsworth photo
Vladimir Putin photo
Jesse Jackson photo

“We need a regime change in this country.… If we launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq we lose all moral authority.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Speech against the Iraq War, reported in Brian Dakss (26 October 2002) "Shades Of The Sixties" http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/26/attack/main527058.shtml CBS News

Hillary Clinton photo

“I have a million ideas. The country can't afford them all.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Reply to a question whether her proposals can be implemented without increasing the national debt, October 11, 2007. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/11/clinton_vows_to_check_executive_power/
Presidential campaign (January 20, 2007 – 2008)

Hillary Clinton photo
Leonid Brezhnev photo

“It is madness for any country to build its policy with an eye to nuclear war.”

Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

As quoted in Indefensible Weapons : The Political and Psychological Case Against Nuclearism (1992) by Robert Jay Lifton and Richard A. Falk, p. 224

Enver Hoxha photo

“In Cambodia, the Cambodian people, communists and patriots, have risen against the barbarous government of Pol Pot, which was nothing but a group of provocateurs in the service of the imperialist bourgeoisie and of the Chinese revisionists, in particular, which had as its aim to discredit the idea of socialism in the international arena… The anti-popular line of that regime is confirmed, also, by the fact that the Albanian embassy in the Cambodian capital, the embassy of a country which has given the people of Cambodia every possible aid, was kept isolated, indeed, encircled with barbed wire, as if it were in a concentration camp. The other embassies, too, were in a similar situation. The Albanian diplomats have seen with their own eyes that the Cambodian people were treated inhumanly by the clique of Pol Pot and Yeng Sari. Pnom Pen was turned into a deserted city, empty of people, where food was difficult to secure even for the diplomats, where no doctors or even aspirins could be found. We think that the people and patriots of Cambodia waited too long before overthrowing this clique which was completely linked with Beijing and in its service.”

Enver Hoxha (1908–1985) the Communist leader of Albania from 1944 until his death in 1985, as the First Secretary of the Party of L…

In regard to Cambodia, our Party and state have condemned the bloodthirsty activities of the Pol Pot clique, a tool of the Chinese social-imperialists. We hope that the Cambodian people will surmount the difficulties they are encountering as soon as possible and decide their own fate and future in complete freedom without any 'guardian'. (Selected Works Vol. VI, p. 419.)
Writings, Other

Russ Feingold photo

“Americans want to defeat terrorism and they want the basic character of this country to survive and prosper. They want both security and liberty, and unless we give them both, and we can if we try, we have failed.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

On the Iraq War, in [Roberts, Joel, Senate Resoundingly Renews Patriot Act, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-resoundingly-renews-patriot-act/, 20 August 2018, CBS News, February 28, 2006]
2006

Cory Booker photo

“We make a grave mistake when we assume this spirit of connectedness is automatic or inevitable. It is not a birthright. A united country is an enduring struggle. It takes collective work and individual sacrifice. It is not enough to call on others or wait for a leader to emerge who will exalt our national values. I believe this is the question we face, as citizens of this nation: what will we do to affirm this most critical American virtue?”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

In [Booker, Cory, United: Thoughts on Finding Common Ground and Advancing the Common Good, https://books.google.com/books?id=iFekDQAAQBAJ, 2017, Random House Publishing Group, 978-1-101-96518-4], as quoted in [Yanklowitz, Rabbi Shmuly, Standing Together In the Era of National Division: Review of United by Cory Booker, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuly-yanklowitz/standing-together-in-the-_b_9359900.html, 21 August 2018, The Huffington Post, March 3, 2016]
2016

Mengistu Neway photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963, Third State of the Union Address

Donald J. Trump photo
Winston S. Churchill photo