Tag Archive for: Politics

Zitate

Carl Sagan on the importance of science education

"We've arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it? ... Science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."

Carl Sagan

Aldous Huxley | The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of democracy

"The perfect dictatorship would have the appearance of democracy, a prison without walls in which the prisoners would not dream of escape. A system of slavery where, through consumption and entertainment, slaves would love their servitude."

Aldous Huxley

Gustav Heinemann | A state is only as free as its gun laws

"A state is only as free as its gun laws"

Gustav Heinemann

George Orwell | To keep them in control was not difficult

"Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult."

George Orwell, 1984

Vilfredo Pareto | All governments use force

"All governments use force and all assert that they are founded on reason. In fact, whether universal suffrage prevails or not, it is always an oligarchy that governs, finding ways to give to'the will of the people'the expression which the few desire."

Vilfredo Pareto

Adolf Hitler | To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens

"To conquer a nation, first disarm its citizens."

Adolf Hitler

Thomas Sowell | Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. Even countries that were once more prosperous than their neighbors have found themselves much poorer than their neighbors after just one generation of socialistic policies."

Thomas Sowell

Marshall McLuhan | The ad teams have billions to spend annually on research

"No group of sociologists can approximate the ad teams in the gathering and processing of exploitable social data. The ad teams have billions to spend annually on research and testing of reactions, and their products are magnificent accumulations of material about the shared experience and feelings of the entire community."

Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan | manage the public’s perception of a subject

"Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people (for example, politicians and performing artists), goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment."

Marshall McLuhan

Hannah Arendt | those who choose the lesser evil

"In their moral justification, the argument of the lesser evil has played a prominent role. If you are confronted with two evils, the argument runs, it is your duty to opt for the lesser one, whereas it is irresponsible to refuse to choose altogether. Its weakness has always been that those who choose the lesser evil forget quickly that they chose evil.[....] Acceptance of the lesser evil is deliberately used to accustom officials, as well as the population at large, to accept the evil itself."

Hannah Arendt

Stephen C. Perkins | psychological warfare, economic and political transformation

"The cavalier expression of such sentiments, the resurrection of a dormant specter from the crypt of America’s “cold war” with the former Soviet Union, is meant purely to foster the viral spread of collective apprehension in the fragile heart of the population which, over the centuries, has proved to be the Jesuit order’s most effective tool in the execution of psychological warfare, economic and political transformation (AKA order out of chaos), and social behavioral modification. Turns out, the looming threat of annihilation at the hands of “nuclear weapons” or viral infection due to the Covid-19 “pandemic” are both hoaxes."

Stephen C. Perkins

Albert Pike | We always give the public their heroes

"We always give the public their heroes. We give the heroes to every faction, and then people once they hear this person say all the right things, we give releases to them because he or she speaks for ‘me’. We say go there go do that and they do it. We give our power to the authorized heroes."

Albert Pike

Jessica Hamed | no longer be able to trust Germany’s highest

"One of the most significant moments for me in my professional career, apart from being sworn in as an attorney, was signing my first - also successful - constitutional complaint. It pains me to no longer be able to trust Germany's highest court in a fundamental way."

Jessica Hamed

Edward Bernays | Our invisible governors

"Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet."

Edward Bernays

Ludwig Erhard | Inflation does not come upon us as a curse or as a tragic fate

"Inflation does not come upon us as a curse or as a tragic fate; it is always caused by reckless or even criminal policies."

Ludwig Erhard

Walter Ulbricht | it must look democratic

"it must look democratic but we must control everything"

Walter Ulbricht

Aldous Huxley | Impersonal forces over which we have almost no control

"Impersonal forces over which we have almost no control seem to be pushing us all in the direction of the Brave New Worldian nightmare; and this impersonal pushing is being consciously accelerated by representatives of commercial and political organizations who have developed a number of new techniques for manipulating, in the interest of some minority, the thoughts and feelings of the masses."

Aldous Huxley

Mahatma Gandhi | The state represents violence

"The state represents violence in a concentrated and organized form. The individual has a soul, but as the state is a soulless machine, it can never be weaned from violence to which it owes its very existence."

Mahatma Gandhi

Milton Friedman | Every friend of freedom

"Every friend of freedom must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence."

Milton Friedman

Vladimir Lenin | While the State exists, there can be no freedom

"While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom there will be no State."

Vladimir Lenin

Steve Jacobson | Political and economic power

"Political and economic power in the United States is concentrated in the hands of a “ruling elite” that controls most of U.S.-based multinational corporations, major communication media, the most influential foundations, major private universities and most public utilities. Founded in 1921, the Council of Foreign Relations is the key link between the large corporations and the federal government. It has been called a “school for statesmen” and “comes close to being an organ of what C. Wright Mills has called the Power Elite – a group of men, similar in interest and outlook shaping events from invulnerable positions behind the scenes. The creation of the United Nations was a Council project, as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank."

Steve Jacobson

Walter Lippmann | The process by which public opinions arise

"That the manufacture of consent is capable of great refinements no one, I think, denies. The process by which public opinions arise is certainly no less intricate than it has appeared in these pages, and the opportunities for manipulation open to anyone who understands the process are plain enough. . . . as a result of psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication, the practice of democracy has turned a corner. A revolution is taking place, infinitely more significant than any shifting of economic power. . . . Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy; that the knowledge needed for the management of human affairs comes up spontaneously from the human heart. Where we act on that theory we expose ourselves to self-deception, and to forms of persuasion that we cannot verify. It has been demonstrated that we cannot rely upon intuition, conscience, or the accidents of casual opinion if we are to deal with the world beyond our reach."

Walter Lippmann

Jacques Ellul | propaganda refines its techniques.

"It is with knowledge of the human being, his tendencies, his desires, his needs, his psychic mechanisms, his automatisms as well as knowledge of social psychology and analytical psychology that propaganda refines its techniques."

Jacques Ellul

Tony Cartalucci | Your Real Government

"These organizations represent the collective interests of the largest corporations on earth. They not only retain armies of policy wonks and researchers to articulate their agenda and form a consensus internally, but also use their massive accumulation of unwarranted influence in media, industry, and finance to manufacture a self-serving consensus internationally. To believe that this corporate-financier oligarchy would subject their agenda and fate to the whims of the voting masses is naive at best. They have painstakingly ensured that no matter who gets into office, in whatever country, the guns, the oil, the wealth and the power keep flowing perpetually into their own hands. [....] The real revolution will commence when we identify the above equation as the true brokers of power and when we begin systematically removing our dependence on them, and their influence on us from our daily lives. The global corporate-financier oligarchy needs us, we do not need them, independence from them is the key to our freedom."

Tony Cartalucci

Jacques Ellul | It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale

"It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale. The orchestration of press, radio and television to create a continuous, lasting and total environment renders the influence of propaganda virtually unnoticed precisely because it creates a constant environment. Mass media provides the essential link between the individual and the demands of the technological society."

Jacques Ellul

Prof. Rainer Mausfeld | the illusion of democracy

"But what could make democracy attractive to the powerful, whose very power it limits and threatens? The answer is quite simple: Nothing! For democracy means precisely to restrict the power needs of the powerful and the rich, in which they naturally have no interest. This now results in a tension between the needs of the rulers to stabilize their status and our need to feel socially autonomous and self-determined with regard to our social situation. In history, this fundamental tension has often been discharged in the form of revolutions. From the point of view of the rulers, how can this tension be defused if we want to avoid bloody revolutions?

The solution lies in 'satisfying' the citizens' need for freedom with a surrogate, with a substitute drug, namely the illusion of democracy. To create such an illusion of democracy, one needs above all - and this is where the herd metaphor comes into play again - an ideology of justification that justifies why the people are immature and in need of leadership. Furthermore, the idea of democracy, which is so attractive to the people, must be emptied of its meaning so that it is limited only to an electoral act. And finally, continuous democracy management is needed to ensure that the people want what they are supposed to want in the act of voting."

Prof. Rainer Mausfeld

Noam Chomsky | Voting is not an option

"It’s about what you would expect from a bipartisan democracy campaign — it’s an attempt to impose what is called democracy, meaning rule by the rich and the powerful, without interference by the mob but within the framework of formal electoral procedures."

Noam Chomsky

Elon Musk | The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter

"The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter"

Elon Musk

Gustave de Molinari | Anarchy is no guarantee

"Anarchy is no guarantee that some people won't kill, injure, kidnap, defraud, or steal from others. Government is a guarantee that some will."

Gustave de Molinari

Henry Hazlitt | The whole gospel of Karl Marx in a single sentence

"The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are. Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community. Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others. Never under any circumstances admit that your own failure may be owing to your own weakness, or that the failure of anyone else may be due to his own defects - his laziness, incompetence, improvidence, or stupidity."

Henry Hazlitt