#dictator

Once there was a dictator. He drove millions to various kinds of deaths, by war, in prison, or simply in harsh deserts farming their lives away. He destroyed temples, burned books, and ruined the art of calligraphy. He wrote terrible poetry and forced everyone to learn it, so destroying the literary taste of one quarter of humanity. He remained a warrior even as Chairman. He was at his best as a warrior, because as a warrior, he was fighting for his people, dreaming for them. After that, he only ground them down. But I forgive him for saying one beautiful thing: 'Women hold up half the sky.' -- Chairman Mao Tse Tung ↗

— Geoff Ryman

#dictator #politics #art

A new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree. ↗

— George H. W. Bush

#away #blowing #blown #blown away #breeze

A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. ↗

— George W. Bush

#dictatorship #easier #heck #lot #question

Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction. ↗

— George W. Bush

#destruction #dictator #homicidal #hussein #mass

Saddam Hussein was a brutal tyrant. I am glad he is now on trial for crimes against humanity. But, opposition to a dictator is not the measure I use when deciding whether to send our men and women in uniform off to war and possible death. ↗

— Peter DeFazio

#am #brutal #crimes #death #deciding

Unfortunately, writing and reporting the truth is not allowed under Castro's tyrannical dictatorship. ↗

— Lincoln Diaz-Balart

#castro #dictatorship #reporting #truth #truth is

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. ↗

— Harry S. Truman

#efficient #government #you

We have a president for whom English is a second language. He's like 'We have to get rid of dictators,' but he's pretty much one himself. ↗

— Robin Williams

#english #get #himself #language #like

In some states militant nationalism has gone to the lengths of dictatorship, the cult of the absolute or totalitarian state and the glorification of war. ↗

— Arthur Henderson

#cult #dictatorship #glorification #gone #lengths

I can remember when I was a bit of an ETA fan myself. It was in 1973, when a group of Basque militants assassinated Adm. Carrero Blanco. The admiral was a stone-faced secret police chief, personally groomed to be the successor to the decrepit Francisco Franco. His car blew up, killing only him and his chauffeur with a carefully planted charge, and not only was the world well rid of another fascist, but, more important, the whole scheme of extending Franco's rule was vaporized in the same instant. The dictator had to turn instead to Crown Prince Juan Carlos, who turned out to be the best Bourbon in history and who swiftly dismantled Franco's entire system. If this action was 'terrorism,' it had something to be said for it. Everyone I knew in Spain made a little holiday in their hearts when the gruesome admiral went sky-high. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#dictatorship