#democracy

As opposition leader, [Stephen Harper] wrote in the Montreal Gazette in the year before he came to power: 'Information is the lifeblood of a democracy. Without adequate access to key information about government policies and programs, citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions and incompetent or corrupt governments can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.' When he became prime minister, his attitude appeared to undergo a shift of considerable proportions. It often took the Conservatives twice as long as previous governments to handle access requests. Sometimes it took six months to a year. ↗

— Lawrence Martin

#canada #canadian #canadian-government #canadian-politics #censorship

The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies — socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor — and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food. ↗

— John Pilger

#democracy #politics #business

The changes that take place when liberal Democrats replace not so liberal or compassionate Republicans (or Democrats) are merely cosmetic. ↗

— David T. Dellinger

#democrats #elections #republicans #voting #change

secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of ↗

— Bill Moyers

#dreams

A good education helps us make sense of the world and find our way in it ↗

— Mike Rose

#education #school #education

India had a very long independence movement. It started in 1886, [with] the first generation of Western-educated Indians. They were all liberals. They followed the Liberal Party in Britain, and they were very proud of their knowledge of parliamentary systems, parliamentary manners. They were big debaters. They [had], as it were, a long apprenticeship in training for being in power. Even when Gandhi made it a mass movement, the idea of elective representatives, elected working committees, elected leadership, all that stayed because basically Indians wanted to impress the British that they were going to be as good as the British were at running a parliamentary democracy. And that helped quite a lot. ↗

— Meghnad Desai

#india #education

You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker ↗

— Malcolm X

#democracy #freedom #history #hope #individualism

Our mission is not to impose our peculiar institutions upon other nations by physical force or diplomatic treachery but rather by internal peace and prosperity to solve the problem of self-government and reconcile democratic freedom with national stability. ↗

— Benjamin Harrison

#foreign-relations #government #freedom

The more degrees of freedom there are in practice, the wider the discussion and debate can be. ↗

— Thomas Newkirk

#freedom #ideas #freedom

Der Staat, der nur wegen und aus der Freiheit seiner Menschen besteht, darf sich nicht gegen seine Schöpfer wenden. ↗

— Heribert Prantl

#freedom #rechtsstaat #freedom