#dictatorship

Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police. ↗

— Tony Blair

#anywhere #chance #choice #choose #democracy

Sometimes I think that a parody of democracy could be more dangerous than a blatant dictatorship, because that gives people an opportunity to avoid doing anything about it. ↗

— Aung San Suu Kyi

#anything #avoid #because #blatant #could

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship. ↗

— William Blum

#dictatorship #propaganda #violence

The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness. ↗

— Niels Bohr

#democracy #dictatorship #openness #secrecy #should

Important as economic unification is for the recovery of Germany and of Europe, the German people must recognize that the basic cause of their suffering and distress is the war which the Nazi dictatorship brought upon the world. ↗

— James F. Byrnes

#brought #cause #dictatorship #distress #economic

Fascism is not the result of dictatorship. ↗

— John T. Flynn

#fascism #result

One of the achievements of which I am most proud was the codification, the writing into U.S. law, of the U.S. embargo on the Castro dictatorship. ↗

— Lincoln Diaz-Balart

#am #castro #dictatorship #embargo #i

For twenty-five years I've been speaking and writing in defense of your right to happiness in this world, condemning your inability to take what is your due, to secure what you won in bloody battles on the barricades of Paris and Vienna, in the American Civil War, in the Russian Revolution. Your Paris ended with Petain and Laval, your Vienna with Hitler, your Russia with Stalin, and your America may well end in the rule of the Ku Klux Klan! You've been more successful in winning your freedom than in securing it for yourself and others. This I knew long ago. What I did not understand was why time and again, after fighting your way out of a swamp, you sank into a worse one. Then groping and cautiously looking about me, I gradually found out what has enslaved you: YOUR SLAVE DRIVER IS YOU YOURSELF. No one is to blame for your slavery but you yourself. No one else, I say! ↗

— Wilhelm Reich

#dictatorship #emotional-plague #hitler #laval #liberty

The little boats cannot make much difference to the welfare of Gaza either way, since the materials being shipped are in such negligible quantity. The chief significance of the enterprise is therefore symbolic. And the symbolism, when examined even cursorily, doesn't seem too adorable. The intended beneficiary of the stunt is a ruling group with close ties to two of the most retrograde dictatorships in the Middle East, each of which has recently been up to its elbows in the blood of its own civilians. The same group also manages to maintain warm relations with, or at the very least to make cordial remarks about, both Hezbollah and al-Qaida. Meanwhile, a document that was once accurately described as a 'warrant for genocide' forms part of the declared political platform of the aforesaid group. There is something about this that fails to pass a smell test. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#al-qaeda #antisemitism #dictatorship #freedom-flotilla-ii #gaza

when your actions towards acquiring leadership in any country portrays blatant mischief orchestrated towards disregarding the concepts of the constitution, you do not only become guilty of hijacking power which rightfully belong to the people, but also, you are guilty of violation of the rights of freedom of the same people that you purport to want to lead. Like any match, elections is competition towards democracy, and all competitions have rules that set guidelines in that particular competition. Any violation of such rules renders that competition invalid. True democracy does not condone compromises. True democracy upholds and adheres to the rule of law, for it is the rule of law that can explicitly define democracy. ↗

— Akuku Mach Pep

#dictatorship #freedom #inspirational #politics #freedom