"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - President James Madison "The enormous gap between what U.S. leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology." - Michael Parenti, political scientist/author "The Press was protected so that it COULD bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and UNrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent ANY part of the government from DECEIVING the people." - Justice Hugo L Black, U S Supreme Court, N Y Times vs U.S., 1971 (Pentagon Papers) "The modern susceptibility to conformity and obedience to authority indicates that the truth endorsed by authority is likely to be accepted as such by a majority of the people." - David Edwards, British columnist, "Burning All Illusions," 1996 "A slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts." - Euripides "We're NOT a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: A government by the wealthy." - Ramsey Clark, former U S Attorney General "Of all forms of tyranny, the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy." - John Pierpont Morgan "Free enterprise is a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich." - Dr Noam Chomsky, Professor of Linguistics at MIT "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." - Thomas Jefferson "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini "The real truth of the matter - as you and I know - is that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson." - President Franklin D Roosevelt "Search for the TRUTH is the noblest occupation of man; its PUBLICATION is a DUTY." - Anne Louise Germaine de Stael, French author "A great industrial Nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the Nation and all of our activities are in the hands of a FEW men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely CONTROLLED and dominated governments in the world no longer a government of free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of SMALL groups of dominant men." - President Woodrow Wilson, "Campaign Speeches," 1912 "Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, political philosopher, educator and essayist, "The Social Contract" "Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude." - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Statesman, philosopher and orator "No man survives when freedom fails, The best men rot in filthy jails, And those who cry 'appease, appease' Are hanged by those they tried to please." - Hiram Mann "Today, the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but, disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort." - Marshall McLuhan "All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise NOT from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, or from want of honor or virtue, so much as downright ignorance of coin, credit and circulation." - John Adams, Founding Father and 2nd U S President "...,if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties if that is what they mean by a 'liberal' then I am PROUD to be a liberal." President John F Kennedy "Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said: 'War is an evil inasmuch as it produces more wicked men than it takes away.'" - Immanuel Kant "If a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has NO defense,... it is a national crime." - Chales Eliot Norton "Our only political party has two right wings, one called Republican, the other Democratic. But Henry Adams figured all that out back in the 1890s. 'We have a single system,' he wrote, 'and in that system the only question is the price at which the proletariat is to be bought and sold, the bread and circuses.'" - Gore Vidal, "The Decline & Fall of the American Empire" "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power." - President Franklin Delano Roosevet "We stand for the maintenance of private property,... we shall protect free enterprise as the most expedient, or rather the sole possible economic order." - Adolph Hitler "God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he was sent to us by God to save Germany." - Hermann Goering, speaking of Hitler "If a baseball player slides into home plate and, right before the umpire rules if he is safe or out, the player says to the umpire: 'Here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call it a bribe. If a lawyer was arguing a case before a judge and said: 'Your honor before you decide on the guilt or innocence of my client, here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call it a bribe. "But if an industry lobbyist walks into the office of a key legislator and hands her or him a check for $1,000, we call it a campaign contribution. We SHOULD call it a BRIBE." - Janice Fine, "Dollars & Sense" magazine "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is DESTROYED." - President Abraham Lincoln, 1865 "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an INvisible government owing NO allegiance and acknowledging NO responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today." President Theodore Roosevelt, 1906 "To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire, and where they make a wilderness, they call it 'peace.'" - Tacitus, Roman historian "It is a tragic mix-up when the United States spends $500,000 for every enemy soldier killed, and only $53 annually on the victims of poverty." - Martin Luther King, Jr "Youth is the first victim of war; the first fruit of peace. It takes 20 years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only 20 seconds of war to destroy him." - King Baudouin I, King of Belgium "Today's human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts." - Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (retired) "Misunderstanding arising from ignorance breeds fear, and fear remains the greatest enemy of peace." - Lester B Pearson "Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe? Expediency asks the question: Is it politic? Vanity asks the question: Is it popular? But conscience asks the question: Is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular,... but one must take it simply because it is right." - Martin Luther King, Jr "No one has ever succeeded in keeping nations at war except by LIES." - Salvador de Madariaga, Spanish writer, diplomat and historian "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. BUT cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear." - Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Statesman, philosopher and orator (Speech in the Roman Senate) "The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen NOT to be silent." - Charles Eliot Norton "Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person, my country is the world, and my religion is to do good." - Thomas Paine "To change masters is NOT to be free." - Jose Martiy Perez "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms!" - President Thomas Jefferson "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did NOTHING because he could only do a little." - Edmund Burke "The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - Albert Camus "Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." - Frederick Douglass "If the author(s) of the Declaration of Independence were to utter such a sentiment today, the Post Office Department could exclude him from the mail, grand juries could indict him for sedition and criminal syndicalism, legislative committees could seize his private papers... and the United States Senators would be clamoring for his deportation that he... should be sent back to live with the rest of the terrorists!" - Frank I Cobb "If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual." - Frank Herbert "When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that DO." - William Blake "Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws." - President John Adams "WHY is this man in the White House?! The majority of Americans did NOT vote for him. WHY is he there? And I tell you this morning that he's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." - Lt Gen William Boykin, speaking of George W Bush, N Y Times, 10-17-'03 "International law?! I better call my lawyer,... he didn't bring THAT up to me!" - George W Bush, 12-12-'03 "A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider God-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side." - Aristotle

