Quotes about state
page 86

“Vampires can’t exist. There’d be detailed records in the archives; they couldn’t possibly evade detection by the state for any significant period. Besides which…there’d be corpses everywhere. Human blood is a poor nutrient source; it’s about 60 percent plasma by volume and only provides about 900 calories per liter, so your hypothetical blood-sucking fiend is going to have to drink about two and a half liters per day. Those calories don’t come in the form of useful stuff like glucose and fat: it’s mostly protein from circulating red blood cells. Dracula would have to exsanguinate a victim every day just to stay alive, and would suffer from chronic ketoacidosis. The total number of intentional homicides for the whole country is around 700 a year; a single vampire would cause a 50 percent spike in the murder rate. Or they’d have to take transfusion-sized donations about two thousand times a year.”

Charles Stross The Laundry Files

Source: The Laundry Files, The Rhesus Chart (2014), Chapter 1, “Prologue: One Month Ago” (p. 2; ellipsis represents elision of one sentence of description)

Drink, Suffering, Time, Country

“Simple old-fashioned death, the kind that predated the singularity, used to be the inevitable halting state for all life-forms. Fairy tales about afterlives notwithstanding.”

Charles Stross book Accelerando

A dry chuckle: “I used to try to believe a different one before breakfast every day, you know, just in case Pascal’s wager was right—exploring the phase-space of all possible resurrections, you know? But I think at this point we can agree that Dawkins was right. Human consciousness is vulnerable to certain types of transmissible memetic virus, and religions that promise life beyond death are a particularly pernicious example because they exploit our natural aversion to halting states.”
Source: Accelerando (2005), Chapter 9 (“Survivor”), pp. 396-397

Life, Death, Fashion

“Bolivia’s key reserves are in lithium, which is essential for the electric car. Bolivia claims to have 70 percent of the world’s lithium reserves… Morales made it clear that any development of the lithium had to be done with Bolivia’s Comibol—its national mining company—and Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB)—its national lithium company—as equal partners… Tesla (United States) and Pure Energy Minerals (Canada) both showed great interest in having a direct stake in Bolivian lithium. But they could not make a deal that would take into consideration the parameters set by the Morales government. Morales himself was a direct impediment to the takeover of the lithium fields by the non-Chinese transnational firms. He had to go.”

Vijay Prashad (1967) Indian historian and journalist

Vijay Prashad in The Bolivian Coup Comes Down to One Precious Mineral, https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-bolivian-coup-comes-down-to-one-precious-mineral/ TruthDig, (13 November 2019)

World, Making love, Cars

“In particular, a free market and capitalism, both subject to state control, are now being permitted and are developing; on the other hand, the socialised state enterprises are being put on what is called a profit basis, i. e., they are being reorganised on commercial lines, which, in view of the general cultural backwardness and exhaustion of the country, will, to a greater or lesser degree, inevitably give rise to the impression among the masses that there is an antagonism of interest between the management of the different enterprises and the workers employed in them.”

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

“The Role and Functions of the Trade Unions under the New Economic Policy”, LCW, 33, p. 184. Decision Of The C.C., R.C.P.(B.), January 12, 1922. Published in Pravda No. 12, January 17, 1922; Lenin’s Collected Works https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/cw/pdf/lenin-cw-vol-33.pdf, 2nd English Edition, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Volume 33, pages 188–196. 1920s

Country

“The retreat has come to an end; it is now a matter of regrouping our forces. These are the instructions that the Congress must pass so as to put an end to fuss and bustle. Calm down, do not philosophize; if you do, it will be counted as a black mark against you. Show by your practical efforts that you can work no less efficiently than the capitalists. The capitalists create an economic link with the peasants in order to amass wealth; you must create a link with peasant economy in order to strengthen the economic power of our proletarian state. You have the advantage over the capitalists in that political power is i n your hands; you have a number of economic weapons at your command; the only trouble is that you cannot make proper use of them.”

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

"Communism and New Economic Policy",(April 1921)
1920s

Making love, Effort, Wealth

“The economic basis for the complete withering away of the state is such a high stage of development of communism at which the antithesis between mental and physical labour disappears, at which there consequently disappears one of the principal sources of modern social quality - a source, moreover, which cannot on any account be removed immediately by the mere conversion of the means of production into public property, by the mere expropriation of the capitalists.”

Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution

The Lenin Anthology, p.379
The State and Revolution (1917)

Communication

“A state arises, a special force is created in the form of special bodies of armed men, and every revolution, by destroying the state apparatus, demonstrates to us how the ruling class strives to restore the special bodies of armed men which serve it, and how the oppressed class strives to create a new organization of this kind, capable of serving not the exploiters but the exploited.”

Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution

1.2, Essential Works of Lenin (1966)
The State and Revolution (1917)

Men

“In such circumstances, in view of the incredibly widespread nature of the distortions of Marxism, our first task is to restore the true doctrine of Marx on the state.”

Vladimir Lenin book The State and Revolution

1.1, Essential Workers of Lenin (1966)
The State and Revolution (1917)

Nature

“The basic question of every revolution is that of state power. Unless this question is understood, there can be no intelligent participation in the revolution, not to speak of guidance of the revolution. The highly remarkable feature of our revolution is that it has brought about dual power.”

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

This fact must be grasped first and foremost: unless it is understood, we cannot advance. We must know how to supplement and amend old "formulas".
Lenin Anthology, p. 301
1910s, "The Dual Power" (1917)

Intelligence, Question

“We must look at climate change as if it were a devastating military attack against the United States and the entire planet. And we must respond accordingly.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Twitter post https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1080252780328169473 (1 January 2019) 2010s, 2019, January 2019

Change

“I learned a great deal about immigration as a child because my father came from Poland at the age of 17, without a nickel in his pocket, without knowing one word of English. He came to the United States to escape the crushing poverty that existed in his community, and to escape widespread anti-Semitism. And, it was a good thing that he came to this country because virtually his entire family was wiped out by Hitler and Nazi barbarism… The underlying principles of our government will not be racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and religious bigotry. I did not come from a family that taught me to build a corporate empire through housing discrimination. I protested housing discrimination, was arrested for protesting school segregation, and one of the proudest days of my life was attending the March on Washington for jobs and freedom led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Quoted in Cornel West on Bernie, Trump, and Racism, The Intercept, Mehdi Hasan https://theintercept.com/2019/03/07/cornel-west-on-bernie-trump-and-racism/?campaign=homepage-podcast-deconstructed (7 March 2019) 2010s, 2019, March 2019

Life, Age, School, Family

“A $15 minimum wage once seemed impossible. Since then, 6 states raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour. 29 states raised it above the national minimum of $7.25 an hour. Thanks to a strong grassroots movement, $15 has gone from laughable to inevitable.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Twitter post, https://twitter.com/SenSanders (24 April 2019) 2010s, 2019, April 2019

Strong

“Attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman are unacceptable and must be fully investigated… but this incident must not be used as a pretext for a war with Iran, a war which would be an unmitigated disaster for the United States, Iran, the region, and the world… The time is now for the United States to exert international leadership,… and bring the countries in the region together to forge a diplomatic solution to the growing tensions…I would also remind President Trump that there is no congressional authorization for a war with Iran… A unilateral U. S. attack on Iran would be illegal and unconstitutional.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Trump Must Not Be Allowed to Use Gulf of Oman Incidents as 'Pretext for Illegal War With Iran': Bernie Sanders, Common Dreams, Andrea Germanos, https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/14/trump-must-not-be-allowed-use-gulf-oman-incidents-pretext-illegal-war-iran-bernie (14 June 2019) 2010s, 2019, June 2019

War, World, Time, Country

“I agree with what goes on in Canada and in Scandinavia: guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right. I believe that the United States should not be the only major country on Earth not to provide paid family and medical leave. I believe that every worker in this country deserves a living wage and that we expand the trade union movement.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

2010s, 2019, September 2019

People, Family, Country

“According to the laws of social development established by Marx, a backward agricultural country cannot show the way to Socialism to other countries. Its failure in this respect is foreordained. It is merely a question of when and how this failure will finally manifest itself. Until now the Bolsheviki have been skillful in disguising their failure under the mask of promises of a glorious future. The last such promise was the Five-Year plan. But the Bolshevist state economy has been in existence now more than fifteen years. For more than ten years the USSR has been enjoying complete peace. And yet, contrary to all promises, things under the Bolshevist state economy have been getting worse every year, (excepting the short period of the Nep), and the day is not far distant when even the most credulous will become convinced that the Bolshevist way leads not upward, toward Socialism, but downward, to open ruin or slow disintegration.”

Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician

Chap. IV, Democracy and Dictatorship “Marxism and Bolshevism: Democracy and Dictatorship,” (1934) http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1934/bolshevism/index.htm

Peace, Law, Way, Failure

“The worst reproach that Engels could make against the first English Marxists was that they were applying Marxism in a sectarian spirit. What would he have said, had he lived to see it, about a school of Marxists who after succeeding in capturing the state power proceeded to make a state religion of Marxism, a religion whose articles of faith and their interpretation are watched over by the government, a religion, the criticism of which, nay, the slightest deviation from which, is sternly punished by the State; a Marxism ruling by the methods of the Spanish Inquisition, propagated with fire and sword, practicing a theatrical ritual, as illustrated by the embalmed body of Lenin: a Marxism reduced to the status not only of a state religion but of a medieval or oriental faith? Such a Marxism may indeed be called a doctrinaire fanaticism.”

Karl Kautsky (1854–1938) Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician

Chap. I, The Beginnings of Marxism “Marxism and Bolshevism: Democracy and Dictatorship,” (1934) http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1934/bolshevism/index.htm

Making love, School, Faith, Religion

“I really believe that there are going to be a lot of arguments to make against him that we can look forward to, I’m not going to spill the beans right now. But, suffice it to say that there are many arguments that we can use against him. But, one argument that I am uniquely qualified to bring, because of my service as Secretary of State is what his presidency would mean to our country and our standing in the world. I am already receiving messages from leaders — I’m having foreign leaders ask if they can endorse me to stop Donald Trump.”

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

13 March 2016 http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2016/03/13/full-rush-transcript-hillary-clinton-partcnn-tv-one-democratic-presidential-town-hall/ Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

World, Making love, Country

“The Venetians invented the income tax, statistical science, the floating of government stock, state censorship of books, anonymous denunciations (the Bocca del Leone), the gambling casino, and the Ghetto.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

Source: Venice Observed (1956), Ch. 7

Books, Science

“If only one could … But it required strength. The romantic life had been too hard for her. In morals as in politics anarchy is not for the weak. The small state, racked by internal dissension, invites the foreign conqueror. Proscription, martial law, the billeting of the rude troops, the tax collector, the unjust judge, anything, anything at all, is sweeter than responsibility.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

The dictator is also the scapegoat; in assuming absolute authority, he assumes absolute guilt; and the oppressed masses, groaning under the yoke, know themselves to be innocent as lambs, while they pray hypocritically for deliverance.
First published in Harper's Bazaar (April 1942)
Source: The Company She Keeps (1942), Ch. 6 "Ghostly Father, I Confess", p. 184.

Life, Law

“One thing is certain, however, and that is, that the most powerful instinct of human nature, the instinct to struggle and survive, the instinct to be superior, must be destroyed or greatly subordinated before the state here outlined can be realized; for the ideal state will be practically bereft of opportunity for its satisfaction.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Ideal, p. 161

Nature

“Why should living beings struggle against each other, except as they struggle to advance the general welfare? Happiness is just as valuable and just as beautiful a thing in one being as in another. Some have greater talent for it than have others but it is a state of sweetness and elation always and everywhere. And each living being, in deliberating on the problem of the proprieties, should realize the fact that, as a matter of fact, it is a matter of indifference whether this relation belongs to his sensorium or to some other sensorium. It is insane for each being to insist that he, as an organism, is the one organism to whom pleasure is indispensable. The only indispensable is that pleasure be maximized. If a definite amount of happiness is to be experienced, it is, in the eyes of the absolute, a matter of indifference whether this happiness is experienced by one individual or by another, by self or by some other conscious portion of the universe.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Ideal, pp. 157–158

Happiness, Pleasure, Beauty, Problem

“There is a kinship of all beings, for the life process has sprung from one source and evolved according to one fundamental principle. Consciousness of kind, therefore, the ability to participate in the psychic states of others, is cultivated by a knowledge of the nature and content of those around us, and anything which tends to increase or complete our knowledge of others, as identity of language, association, or ambition, tends to intensify consciousness of kind, and whatever limits or prevents knowledge of others tends to cause us to consider them of a different order or kind from ourselves.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Egoism and Altruism, pp. 117–118

Life, Nature, Knowledge

“The ultimate values in the world are those of personality and no theory of the state, whether socialistic or capitalistic, is valid, which makes it master, not servant, of man.”

Norman Thomas (1884–1968) American Presbyterian minister and socialist

As quoted in Norman Thomas: Respectable Rebel, Murray B. Seidler, Syracuse University Press (1961) p. 27

World, Making love, Personality

“To superficial consideration, it might appear that in its relationship to the State Christianity simply took over the heritage of Judaism, and that the problem poses itself in exactly the same way here as there. Actually, however, the Jewish theocratic ideal is expressly rejected by Christianity as satanic—we need only recall the temptation stories in the Gospel. Satan offers to Christ the kingdoms of the world.”

Oscar Cullmann (1902–1999) French theologian

Source: The State in the New Testament (1956), p. 9

World, Way, Problem, Appearance

“We must also recognize that the national administration is not and cannot be adjusted to the needs of local government. … The states should not be induced by coercion or by favor to surrender the management of their own affairs. The federal government ought to resist the tendency to be loaded up with duties which the States should perform. It does not follow that because something ought to be done the national government ought to do it. …”

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

1920s, Speech at College of William and Mary (May 15, 1926)

“WikiLeaks and Assange have done more to expose the dark machinations and crimes of the American Empire than any other news organization. Assange, in addition to exposing atrocities and crimes committed by the United States military in our endless wars and revealing the inner workings of the Clinton campaign, made public the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency, their surveillance programs and their interference in foreign elections…And WikiLeaks worked swiftly to save Edward Snowden, who exposed the wholesale surveillance of the American public by the government, from extradition to the United States by helping him flee from Hong Kong to Moscow…”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

"Crucifying Julian Assange" (2018)

War, Help

“Trump’s most unforgivable sin in the eyes of the deep state is his criticism of the empire’s endless wars, even though he lacks the intellectual and organizational skills to oversee a disengagement.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

"The Enemy Within" (2019)

War

“Our democracy is not in peril—we do not live in a democracy. The image of our democracy is in peril. The deep state—the generals, bankers, corporatists, lobbyists, intelligence chiefs, government bureaucrats and technocrats—is intent on salvaging the brand. It is hard to trumpet yourself as the world’s guardian of freedom and liberty with Donald Trump blathering on incoherently about himself, inciting racist violence, insulting our traditional allies along with the courts, the press and Congress, tweeting misspelled inanities and impulsively denouncing or sabotaging bipartisan domestic and foreign policy.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

"The Enemy Within" (2019)

World, Democracy, Intelligence, Freedom

“There is a tradition of popular struggle in the United States that has been downplayed and ignored. It ebbs and flows but never ceases. Moved by a combination of anger and hope, ordinary people have organized, agitated, demonstrated, and engaged in electoral challenges, civil disobedience, strikes, sit-ins, takeovers, boycotts, and sometimes violent clashes with the authorities - for better wages and work conditions, a safer environment, racial and gender justice, and peace and nonintervention abroad. Against the heaviest odds, they have suffered many defeats but won some important victories, forcible extracting concessions and imposing reforms upon resistant rulers.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

Source: Democracy for the Few (2010 [1974]), sixth edition, Chapter 17, p. 320

People, Peace, Justice, Hope

“The Jewish people have contributed greatly to America. No group has had such an outsized influence per capita as all of you standing before you, and all of those who went before me and all of those who went before you … You make up 11 percent of the seats in the United States Congress. You make up one-third of all Nobel laureates … I think you, as usual, underestimate the impact of Jewish heritage. I really mean that. I think you vastly underestimate the impact you’ve had on the development of this nation.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

2013-05-21 Biden: 'Jewish heritage is American heritage' Jennifer Epstein Politico https://www.politico.com/blogs/politico44/2013/05/biden-jewish-heritage-is-american-heritage-164525 and * 2013-05-22 Biden Praises Jews, Goes Too Far, Accidentally Thrills Anti-Semites Jonathan Chait Intelligencer New York Magazine http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/biden-praises-jews-goes-too-far.html
2013

People, Making love, Thinking

“White people in this country must be willing to accept black leadership, for that is the only protection that black people have to protect ourselves from racism rising again in this country. Racism in the United States is so pervasive in the mentality of whites that only an armed, well-disciplined, black-controlled Government can insure the stamping out of racism in this country.”

James Forman (1928–2005) American civil rights leader

Source: "The Black Manifesto" (1969), p. 118

People, Country

“Black people … are the most humane people within the United States. We have suffered and we understand suffering.”

James Forman (1928–2005) American civil rights leader

Source: "The Black Manifesto" (1969), p. 116

People, Understanding, Suffering

“Any class analysis of the United States shows very clearly that black people are the most oppressed group of people inside the United States. We have suffered the most from racism and exploitation, cultural degradation and lack of political power. It follows from the laws of revolution that the most oppressed will make the revolution.”

James Forman (1928–2005) American civil rights leader

Source: "The Black Manifesto" (1969), p. 116

People, Making love, Law, Suffering

“Black people in this country must understand that we are the vanguard force. We shall liberate all the people in the United States, and we will be instrumental in the liberation of colored people the world around.”

James Forman (1928–2005) American civil rights leader

Source: "The Black Manifesto" (1969), p. 116

People, World, Color, Understanding

“We should not think of going back to Africa today, for we are located in a strategic position. We live inside the United States, which is the most barbaric country in the world, and we have a chance to help bring this government down.”

James Forman (1928–2005) American civil rights leader

Source: "The Black Manifesto" (1969), p. 116

World, Thinking, Chance, Help

“The Left is infested with pedophiles - they promote the welfare state and feminism in order to get protective fathers out of the home, so they have easier sexual access to the children of single mothers.”

Stefan Molyneux (1966) libertarian philosopher, writer, speaker, and online broadcaster

@StefanMolyneux https://twitter.com/StefanMolyneux/status/1178376530726047749, Twitter (September 29, 2019)

Children, Home

“The First Amendment to the United States Constitution encourages a diversity of religions but does not prohibit criticism of religion. In fact it protects and encourages criticism of religion. Religions ought to be subject to at least the same degree of skepticism as, for example, contentions about UFO visitations or Velikovskian catastrophism. I think it is healthy for the religions themselves to foster skepticism about the fundamental underpinnings of their evidential bases. There is no question that religion provides a solace and support, a bulwark in time of emotional need, and can serve extremely useful social roles. But it by no means follows that religion should be immune from testing, from critical scrutiny, from skepticism. It is striking how little skeptical discussion of religion there is in the nation that Tom Paine, the author of The Age of Reason, helped to found. I hold that belief systems that cannot survive scrutiny are probably not worth having.”

Carl Sagan book Broca's Brain

Source: Broca's Brain (1979), Chapter 23, “A Sunday Sermon” (p. 338)

Pain, Age, Religion, Question

“I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”

Dylann Roof (1994) American mass murderer

archived 20 June 2015 https://web.archive.org/web/20150620135047/http://lastrhodesian.com/data/documents/rtf88.txt on website registered 9 February 2015, published 21 June 2015 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html in NYT, original date of authorship unknown

World, Time, Fight, Country

“Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect. And it is particularly pleasing to observe in the good citizenship of such as have been most distrusted and oppressed elsewhere, a happy illustration of the safety and success of this experiment of a just and benignant policy. Equal laws protecting equal rights, are found as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty, and love of country; as well as best calculated to cherish that mutual respect and good will among citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary to social harmony and most favorable to the advancement of truth.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Letter to Jacob De La Motta (August 1820), Manuscript Division, Papers of James Madison http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/loc/madison.html 1820s

Love, Happiness, Truth, Making love

“The State is abdicating and appealing in its holy functions to private individuals. Everywhere free organization trespasses on its domain. And yet, the facts we have quoted let us catch only a glimpse of what free agreement has in store for us in the future, when there will be no more State.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Ch 11 : Free Agreement
The Conquest of Bread (1892)

Quotes, Future

“It is absolutely incomprehensible to us that intelligent men — and such are not wanting in the collectivist party — can remain partisans of national or municipal parliaments after all the lessons history has given them — in France, in England, in Germany, or in the United States.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 13 : The Collectivist Wages System

Men, History, Intelligence

“Collectivism, as we know, does not abolish wages, though it introduces considerable modifications into the existing order of things. It only substitutes the State, that is to say, Representative Government, national or local, for the individual employer of labor. Under Collectivism it is the representatives of the nation, or of the district, and deputies and officials who are to have the control of industry. It is they who reserve to themselves the right of employing the surplus of production — in the interests of all.”

Peter Kropotkin book The Conquest of Bread

Source: The Conquest of Bread (1892), Ch. 5 : Food, p. 101

“A state can be said to be a neo-colonialist or client state if it is independent de jure and dependent de facto.”

Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972) Pan Africanist and First Prime Minister and President of Ghana

It is a state where political power lies in the conservative forces of the former colony and where economic power remains under the control of international finance capital.
"Sham independence," p. 8
Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare (1968)

Dependency

“I entertain no doubt that Tariff Reform would considerably alleviate these evils, but I have never believed that it will end them. Which party in the State stands to lose most by their continuance? Is it not evident that the party, to whom stability and content are vital, is far more deeply concerned to restore happier conditions than the party which lives upon discontent and the promulgation of class hatred? A contented proletariat should be one of the first objects of enlightened Conservative policy.”

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930) British politician

"The Future of the Conservative Party", p. 17
Unionist Policy and Other Essays (1913)

Evil

“It appears that we are to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are to have 1,300,000 unemployed in this country. There are no unemployed in the United States of America, no unemployed at all in France. There are hardly any unemployed in Italy. The United States of America, France, and Italy are protectionist countries. We are a free-trade import country.”

F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1872–1930) British politician

Speech to the Constitutional Club (20 November 1923), quoted in The Times (21 November 1923), p. 17

Appearance, Country

“The United States has enough military hardware and technology to… bully, bribe and blackmail people into going along with their wars is something you mustn’t underestimate. …The multinationals have no loyalty to the United States any more than they have any loyalty to Britain, but the way they express their interest is by buying both political parties in America and expecting a pay-off whichever one wins — and that is totally anti-democratic.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Tony Benn interview: Hope is the key, Share International Foundation http://www.share-international.org/magazine/old_issues/2003/jan_03.htm#benn (January 2003). 2000s

War, People, Way, Loyalty

“The issues raised in the historic conflict between Charles I, resting his claim to govern Britain on the divine right of kings, and Parliament - representing, however imperfectly, a demand for the wider sharing of power - concerned the use and abuse of state power, the right of the governed to a say in their government, and the nature of political freedom. The Levellers grew out of this conflict. They represented the aspirations of working people who suffered under the persecution of kings, landowners and the priestly class, and they spoke for those who experienced the hardships of poverty and deprivation. They developed and campaigned, first with Cromwell and then against him, for a political and constitutional settlement of the civil war which would embody principles of political freedom, anticipating by a century and a half the ideas of the American and French revolutions.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

' The Levellers and the Tradition of Dissent https://web.archive.org/web/20081214151939/https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/benn_levellers_01.shtml' (1 June 2001) 2000s

War, People, Idea, Nature

“It is an indisputable historical fact…that Marxism has, from the earliest days, always been openly accepted by the party as one of many sources of inspiration within our movement, along with—though much less influential than—Christian Socialism, Fabianism, Owenism, trade unionism, or even radical Liberalism. Marxism is not synonymous with communism and it is not true that there is growing up in the Labour Party a dominant group which believes in violent revolution, the one-party state and suppression of democratic rights.”

Tony Benn (1925–2014) British Labour Party politician

Statement for Labour's National Executive Committee in defence of Andy Bevan, a Marxist who had been appointed Labour's National Youth Officer, quoted in The Times (16 December 1976), p. 14
1970s

Communication

“All these present struggles revolve around the question: Who are we? They are a refusal of these abstractions, of economic and ideological state violence, which ignore who we are individually, and also a refusal of a scientific or administrative inquisition which determines who one is.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Source: "The Subject and Power" (1982), p. 781

Question

“By power… I do not understand a general system of domination exercised by one element or one group over another, whose effects… traverse the entire body social… It seems to me that first what needs to be understood is the multiplicity of relations of force that are immanent to the domain wherein they are exercised, and that are constitutive of its organization; the game that through incessant struggle and confrontation transforms them, reinforces them, inverts them; the supports these relations of force find in each other, so as to form a chain or system, or, on the other hand, the gaps, the contradictions that isolate them from each other; in the end, the strategies in which they take effect, and whose general pattern or institutional crystallization is embodied in the mechanisms of the state, in the formulation of the law, in social hegemonies. The condition of possibility of power… should not be sought in the primary existence of a central point, in a unique space of sovereignty whence would radiate derivative and descendent forms; it is the moving base of relations of force that incessantly induce, by their inequality, states of power, but always local and unstable. Omnipresence of power: not at all because it regroups everything under its invincible unity, but because it is produced at every instant, at every point, or moreover in every relation between one point and another. Power is everywhere: not that it engulfs everything, but that it comes from everywhere.”

Michel Foucault (1926–1984) French philosopher

Par pouvoir… je n’entends pas un système général de domination exercée par un élément ou un groupe sur un autre, et dont les effets, par dérivations successives, traversaient le corps social tout entier… il me semble qu’il faut comprendre d’abord la multiplicité de rapports de force qui sont immanents au domaine où ils s’exercent, et sont constitutifs de leur organisation ; le jeu qui par voie de luttes et d’affrontements incessants les transforme, les renforce, les inverse ; les appuis que ces rapports de force trouvent les uns dans les autres, de manière à former chaîne ou système, ou, au contraire, les décalages, les contradictions qui les isolent les uns des autres ; les stratégies enfin dans lesquelles ils prennent effet, et dont le dessin général ou la cristallisation institutionnelle prennent corps dans les appareils étatiques, dans la formulation de la loi, dans les hégémonies sociales. La condition de possibilité du pouvoir… il ne fait pas la chercher dans l’existence première d’un point central, dans un foyer unique de souveraineté d’où rayonneraient des formes dérivées et descendantes ; induisent sans cesse, par leur inégalité, des états de pouvoir, mais toujours locaux et instables. Omniprésence du pouvoir : non point parce qu’il aurait le privilège de tout regrouper sous son invincible unité, mais parce qu’il se produit à chaque instant, en tout point, ou plutôt dans toute relation d’un point à un autre. Le pouvoir est partout ; ce n’est pas qu’il englobe tout, c’est qu’il vient de partout.
Vol. I, p. 121-122.
History of Sexuality (1976–1984)

Law, Exercises, Game, Understanding

“America is not an idea or a collection of documents, but neither is it a closed ethnolinguistic set. It is a nation in which relations among the people and between the individual and the state are defined by the terms of citizenship.”

Kevin D. Williamson (1972) American writer

Trump's Omar Comments and Our Eroding Sense of Citizenship (2019)

People, Idea, Relation ships

“In reality, economic xenophobia and ordinary xenophobia always end up colliding. The nastier of Europe’s anti-immigrant and ethno-nationalist movements argue that ethnic solidarity is necessary to preserve the welfare state. Among ordinary Swedes, the topic of immigrants’ — non-Nordic people’s — relatively high rates of unemployment and welfare dependency is politically charged.”

Kevin D. Williamson (1972) American writer

The Whitest Privilege (2015)

People, Reality, Dependency

“I call upon you, young men, to obey your heart, and be the nobility of this land. In every age of the world, there has been a leading nation, one of a more generous sentiment, whose eminent citizens were willing to stand for the interests of general justice and humanity, at the risk of being called, by the men of the moment, chimerical and fantastic. Which should be that nation but these States? Which should lead that movement, if not New England? Who should lead the leaders, but the Young American?”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1840s, The Young American (1844)

Men, Age, World, Justice

“The two parties which divide the State, the party of Conservatism and that of Innovation are very old, and have disputed the possession of the world ever since it was made … Now one, now the other gets the day, and still the fight renews itself as if for the first time, under new names and hot personalities … Innovation is the salient energy; Conservatism the pause on the last movement.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

The Conservative, via Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Cycles of American History (Houghton Mifflin, 1986) p. 23

World, Time, Fight, Personality

“Undoubtedly, looking back, we nearly all allowed ourselves, for decades, to be frozen into rates of personal taxation which were ludicrously high…That frozen framework has been decisively cracked, not only by the prescripts of Chancellors but in the expectations of the people. It is one of the things for which the Government deserve credit…However, even beneficial revolutions have a strong tendency to breed their own excesses. There is now a real danger of the conventional wisdom about taxation, public expenditure and the duty of the state in relation to the distribution of rewards, swinging much too far in the opposite direction…I put in a strong reservation against the view, gaining ground a little dangerously I think, that the supreme duty of statesmanship is to reduce taxation.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1988/feb/24/opportunity-and-income-social-disparities in the House of Lords (24 February 1988) 1980s

Wisdom, People, Thinking, Decision

“A rolling back of the frontiers of State surveillance is necessary. … I have come to the conclusion that this side of MI5 has become more trouble than it is worth. It falls over its own feet too often. It arouses more suspicion and complaint than is justified by the results its achieves. … On grounds of utility I would now close down the political side of its activities.”

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

Letter to The Times (12 March 1985), p. 15
1980s

“Everything has been globalised, except our consent. Democracy alone has been confined to the nation state. It stands at the border, suitcase in hand, without a passport.”

George Monbiot (1963) English writer and political activist

The Age of Consent (2003)

Democracy

“For even if you believe - as most people do - that some immigration is a good thing and makes a country a more interesting place, it does not follow that the more immigration the better. Nor does it mean - however many upsides there are - that there are not downsides which should be equally easy to state without accusations of malice. For mass immigration does not continue bringing the same level of benefits to a society the more people who come in.”

Douglas Murray (1979) British political commentator and far-right activist

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017)

People, Making love, Country

“I fell indeed into a morbid state, deep and enduring, and alien to fear, which has left permanent scars upon my mind. I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world when I saw it suffering the painful disorder of this island. A blind Fate, a vast pitiless Mechanism, seemed to cut and shape the fabric of existence; and I, Moreau (by his passion for research), Montgomery (by his passion for drink), the Beast People with their instincts and mental restrictions, were torn and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity of its incessant wheels.”

H. G. Wells book The Island of Doctor Moreau

Source: The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), Ch. 16: How the Beast Folk Tasted Blood

Pain, Fate, People, World

“If it were right to overstep a little the limits of apodictic certainty befitting metaphysics, it would seem worth while to trace out some things pertaining not merely to the laws but even to the causes of sensuous intuition, which are only intellectually knowable. Of course the human mind is not affected by external things, and the world does not lie open to its insight infinitely, except as far as itself together with all other things is sustained by the same infinite power of one. Hence it does not perceive external things but by the presence of the same common sustaining cause; and hence space, which is the universal and necessary condition of the joint presence of everything known sensuously, may be called the phenomenal omnipresence, for the cause of the universe is not present to all things and everything, as being in their places, but their places, that is the relations of the substances, are possible, because it is intimately present to all. Furthermore, since the possibility of the changes and successions of all things whose principle as far as sensuously known resides in the concept of time, supposes the continuous existence of the subject whose opposite states succeed; that whose states are in flux, lasting not, however, unless sustained by another; the concept of time as one infinite and immutable in which all things are and last, is the phenomenal eternity of the general cause} But it seems more cautious to hug the shore of the cognitions granted to us by the mediocrity of our intellect than to be carried out upon the high seas of such mystic investigations, like Malebranche, whose opinion that we see all things in God is pretty nearly what has here been expounded.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770), Section IV On The Principle Of The Form Of The Intelligible World

God, Lie, World, Law

“The force of the word World, as commonly used, of itself falls in with us. For no one will attribute accidents to the World as parts, but as determinations, states; hence the so-called world of the ego, unrestrained by the single substance and its accidents, is not very appositely called a World, unless, perhaps, an imaginary one.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant's Inaugural Dissertation (1770), Section I On The Idea Of A World In General

World, Parting