Leo Amery: On the subject of India, Winston is not quite sane… I didn’t see much difference between his outlook and Hitler’s. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: From the point of view of Marxism, that is, of modern scientific socialism, the main issue in any discussion by socialists on how to assess the war and what attitude to adopt towards it is this: what is the war being waged for, and what classes staged and directed it. We Marxists do not belong to that category of people who are unqualified opponents of all war. We say: our aim is to achieve a socialist system of society, which, by eliminating the division of mankind into classes, by eliminating all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation, will inevitably eliminate the very possibility of war. But in the war to win that socialist system of society we are bound to encounter conditions under which the class struggle within each given nation may come up against a war between the different nations, a war conditioned by this very class struggle. Therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility of revolutionary wars, i.e., wars arising from the class struggle, wars waged by revolutionary classes, wars which are of direct and immediate revolutionary significance. Still less can w... Show more...
Lenin: From the point of view of Marxism, that is, of modern scientific socialism, the main issue in any discussion by socialists on how to assess the war and what attitude to adopt towards it is this: what is the war being waged for, and what classes staged and directed it. We Marxists do not belong to that category of people who are unqualified opponents of all war. We say: our aim is to achieve a socialist system of society, which, by eliminating the division of mankind into classes, by eliminating all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation, will inevitably eliminate the very possibility of war. But in the war to win that socialist system of society we are bound to encounter conditions under which the class struggle within each given nation may come up against a war between the different nations, a war conditioned by this very class struggle. Therefore, we cannot rule out the possibility of revolutionary wars, i.e., wars arising from the class struggle, wars waged by revolutionary classes, wars which are of direct and immediate revolutionary significance. Still less can we rule this out when we remember that though the history of European revolutions during the last century, in the course of 125–135 years, say, gave us wars which were mostly reactionary, it also gave us revolutionary wars, such as the war of the French revolutionary masses against a united monarchist, backward, feudal and semi-feudal Europe. No deception of the masses is more widespread today in Western Europe, and latterly here in Russia, too, than that which is practised by citing the example of revolutionary wars. There are wars and wars. We must be clear as to what historical conditions have given rise to the war, what classes are waging it, and for what ends. Unless we grasp this, all our talk about the war will necessarily be utterly futile, engendering more heat than light. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Karl Marx: This antagonism is artificially kept alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers, in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes. This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite aware of this. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Abraham Lincoln: Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Stalin: It would be foolish to assume that the international capital will leave us alone. No, comrades, that is not true. Classes exist, international capital exists, and it cannot look calmly at the development of a country under construction socialism. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Mao Zedong: Where do correct ideas come from? Do they drop from the skies? No. Are they innate in the mind? No. They come from social practice and from it alone. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Che Guevara: One must have a large dose of humanity, a large dose of a sense of justice & truth in order to avoid dogmatic extremes, cold scholasticism, or an isolation from the masses. We must strive everyday so that this love of living humanity is transformed into actual deeds. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Lenin: Marxism has provided the guidance — i.e., the theory of the class struggle — for the discovery of the laws governing this seeming maze and chaos. It is only a study of the sum of the strivings of all the members of a given society or group of societies that can lead to a scientific definition of the result of those strivings. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Aldous Huxley: As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. In conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope and movies and the radio, it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
A. Losovsky: The October revolution made the workers the ruling class and the employers the subject class. It reversed the relations between employers and employees, and put the trade unions in the face of new tasks. Immediately after the October Revolution the strikes ceased. Thenceforth, the worker develops (their) grievances, presents them to the trade union and if it sanctions them they are put into force by the power of the state. In case an employer refuses, the worker has at (their) service the prison and all the other methods of persuasion prepared by the bourgeoisie. For the first time in the history of humanity the state takes part in strikes for the benefit of the worker, arrests the employer for refusing to grant the demands of the toilers, establishes by decree wage scales fixed by the unions and confiscates the factories of the recalcitrant employers. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Yuri Gagarin: Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it! wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Curtis LeMay: Killing Japanese didn't bother me very much at that time... I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal.... Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
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Walter Lippmann: We are told about the world before we see it. We imagine most things before we experience them. And those preconceptions, unless education has made us acutely aware, govern deeply the whole process of perception. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. Without criticism and reliable and intelligent reporting, the government cannot govern. For there is no adequate way in which it can keep itself informed about what the people of the country are thinking and doing and wanting. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opposition than from his fervent supporters. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: To create a minimum standard of life below which no human being can fall is the most elementary duty of the democratic state. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Walter Lippmann: A regime, an established order, is rarely overthrown by a revolutionary movement; usually a regime collapses of its own weakness and corruption and then a revolutionary movement enters among the ruins and takes over the powers that have become vacant. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Aristotle: 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. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Charles Bukowski: The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts and the stupid ones are full of confidence. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Aristotle: Men create gods after their own image, not only in regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
Carl Sagan: The nature of life on Earth and the search for life elsewhere are two sides of the same question - the search for who we are. wordsmith.social/protestation/…
