Political Quotes

[seattlegal]

"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
- Ronald Reagan

[Pathless]

"In Central America, in the Carribean and throughout Latin America, your enterprise will have tremendous impact on the political-economic future of the hemisphere. We're grateful to you for your resourcefulness and want to encourage you to be bold and to spread American enterprise throughout the hemisphere."

--Ronald Reagan
to business leaders

[Pathless]

"We have the absolute right to govern, determine our destiny, provide for tribal members, and manage our property, land, water, resources, rights, and activities throughout our homeland from all interference."

--from the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

[YO-ELEVEN-11]

"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it"

William Pitt the Younger, The Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister from 1766 to 1778

[Pathless]

"Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone, person to person."

--Mother Teresa

[Pathless]

"The pioneers of a warless world are the young men [and women] who refuse military service."

--Albert Einstein

[Pathless]

"Who wants to be well-adjusted to injustice? What kind of human being do you want to be?"

--Cornel West

[Pathless]

“To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.”

--Aleister Crowley

[Pathless]

"I confidently expect to accomplish the whole business, extinguishing the Indian title to evey acre in the territory."

--Isaac I. Stevens, Washington State Governor, 1855

[Pathless]

"I believe that the current climate in which people are seen as unpatriotic if they refuse to support the nation is something that parallels the nationalism that happened in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s. Being called 'unpatriotic' because you refuse to support your government is not something that someone should be subjected to.

In the media, there’s a one-sided representation of the war that corresponds to what the U.S. government is attempting to put forward. As such, the feelings of the soldier and also of the Iraqi national are not being represented, because the U.S. government has such control over the media.

What’s taking hold in Iraq is not 'democracy.' It’s just our own fascist tendencies, to be quite honest. I think that forcing our own notion of government into power and forcing our beliefs on these people is not what should happen."

--"Joe Public," enlisted soldier and war resister, quoted here on May 6, 2005

[17th Angel]

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"

-.... Guess...

"I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people." - Dan Quayle

[Pathless]

"I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not."

and

"Wanting to be someone else is just a waste of the person you are."

--Kurt Cobain

[Pathless]

"You're free. And freedom is beautiful. It'll take time to restore chaos... and order. But we will."

--Dubya

[Jack Halyard]

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-Benjamin Franklin

[Pathless]

Here's a good one that I heard on an NPR story. The story is about a small town somewhere in the US whose city council passed a unanimous resolution to support the creation of a United States Department of Peace. When the headline on the local paper the next day reflected this, a bunch of locals got really scared about the possible evils of this possible Department of Peace. Here is a question posed by the interviewer and answered by Jerome Kortuem at the end of the interview:

Interviewer: If Congress created a Department of Peace, what do you worry that America would become in a way that troubles you?
Jerome Korteum: A bunch of wusses.

And there you have it, folks. Peace is for wusses, straight from the mouth of them good ol' boys.