“We have a big argument here about whether Nicaragua and Cuba are sending arms to El Salvador.”

— Noam Chomsky

Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1980s, Talk at University of California, Berkeley, 1984
Context: We have a big argument here about whether Nicaragua and Cuba are sending arms to El Salvador. Well, I don't know, so far there's no evidence that they are, but that's not really the interesting question. I mean, you gotta watch the way questions are framed by the propaganda system. The way it's framed is, the doves say they're not sending arms, and the hawks say they are sending arms. But the real question, which is being suppressed in all of this, is, "Should they be sending arms?" And the answer is of course, "Yes." [applause] Everybody should be sending arms. You see, that question is not raised, just as if somebody was talking in, say, the Soviet Union, and the question came up: "Should somebody send arms to Afghan rebels?" Well, of course not. You know, that's terrorism or something like that. The point is that it's perfectly legitimate to send arms to people who finally try to use violence in self-defense against a gang of mass murderers installed by a foreign power. Of course it's legitimate to send them arms.

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Noam Chomsky 334

american linguist, philosopher and activist 1928

J. S. Holliday (1924–2006) American historian

The West (1996)

“More than any other nation, the United States has been almost constantly involved in armed conflict and, through military alliances, has used war as a means of resolving international and local disputes. Since the birth of the United Nations, we have seen American forces involved in combat in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, and Vietnam, and more recently with lethal attacks in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other sovereign nations. There were no “boots on the ground” in some of these countries; instead we have used high-altitude bombers or remote-control drones. In these cases we rarely acknowledge the tremendous loss of life and prolonged suffering among people in the combat zones, even after our involvement in the conflict is ended.”

Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power

“When, today, you get into an argument about whether "we" ought to raise the minimum wage, you're executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed…”

Eliezer Yudkowsky (1979) American blogger, writer, and artificial intelligence researcher

Politics Is The Mind-Killer http://lesswrong.com/lw/gw/politics_is_the_mindkiller/ (February 2007)
Context: People go funny in the head when talking about politics. The evolutionary reasons for this are so obvious as to be worth belaboring: In the ancestral environment, politics was a matter of life and death. And sex, and wealth, and allies, and reputation... When, today, you get into an argument about whether "we" ought to raise the minimum wage, you're executing adaptations for an ancestral environment where being on the wrong side of the argument could get you killed... Politics is an extension of war by other means. Arguments are soldiers. Once you know which side you're on, you must support all arguments of that side, and attack all arguments that appear to favor the enemy side; otherwise it's like stabbing your soldiers in the back — providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

“Resistance does not just mean sending some martyrdom-seeker to Tel Aviv…. If resistance meant nothing more than bearing arms and making a big fuss – this would not be resistance, but suicide.”

Jibril Rajoub (1953) Palestinian sharamit

Fatah Revolutionary Council Member Jibril Rajoub: Merely Bearing Arms and Making a Big Fuss Is Suicide, Not Resistance http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1434 April 2007

“I always felt, in looking at [the Cuban] situation, that it was wrong. And I now know why. It came to me one night in Mexico. China is communist, the same as Cuba, and yet we have no problem trading with China. In fact, today we can't get over there quick enough. The difference is simple: China welcomes our corporations. Cuba threw them out. It's a basic decision of corporate America: We will punish Cuba because Castro stuck it to us by nationalizing everything after he came to power. What other reason could there be? China is far more powerful but we now welcome them into global trade with open arms—as we should—while we continue this bitter, hostile policy towards Cuba. It must be because there are still people alive in the corporate world who got hammered by Fidel's revolution.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

Source: Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008), Ch. 6 (p. 111)

“The armed forces have acted today solely from the patriotic inspiration of saving the country from the tremendous chaos into which it was being plunged by the Marxist government of Salvador Allende.… The Junta will maintain judicial power and consultantship of the Comptroller. The Chambers will remain in recess until further orders. That is all.”

Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Former dictator of the republic of Chile

Press conference (11 September 1973) Youtube.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Hbhb0ozRuM
1970s

“American dollars should be spent on Americans’ safety and security, and if the national security threat is having an armed gunman in our school rooms, then we need to put our children first and stop sending our dollars overseas.”

Christina Hagan (1988) Member of the Ohio House of Representatives

Source: NRA-Endorsed Christina Hagan: ‘Stop Sending Our Dollars Overseas,’ Pay Armed Veterans to Protect Schools https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/04/24/nra-endorsed-christina-hagan-stop-sending-our-dollars-overseas-pay-armed-veterans-to-protect-schools/ (24 April 2018)