#pol

To win the people, always cook them some savoury that pleases them. ↗

— Aristophanes

#falsehood #government #hypocrisy #politics #popularity

The inner revolution will not be televised or sold on the Internet. It must take place within one's own mind and heart. ↗

— Noah Levine

#philosophy #politics #music

Generalized statements ... which instill nebulous fear without specific information are exactly in line with the goals of terrorism. ↗

— Ze Frank

#politics #quip #internet

For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#politics #virtue

I would say exploit the stupid, because they’re expendable and loyal, but it’s a fact: politicians are not loyal. 
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#exploit #exploitation #fact #loyal #loyalty

When Republicans recently charged the President with promoting 'class warfare,' he answered it was 'just math.' But it's more than math. It's a matter of morality. Republicans have posed the deepest moral question of any society: whether we're all in it together. Their answer is we're not. President Obama should proclaim, loudly and clearly, we are. ↗

— Robert B. Reich

#class-warfare #conservatism #economics #liberalism #mathematics

...nazwa liniowiec tak się miała do naszego okrętu, jak kichnięcie do wystrzału z armaty - używano jej jedynie dlatego, że w oficjalnych dokumentach Royal Navy nie figurował termin "krypa". Ani "pieprzony, pływający zamtuz". Dla większości załogi, którą desperacko próbowałem szkolić, nazwa i tak niewiele znaczyła, byli to bowiem marynarze tworzący rozpuszczoną, zdemoralizowaną bandę ludzi ze statków handlowych, więzień, tawern i przymusowego poboru. Mieliśmy na pokładzie farmerów i hodowców bydła, drobnych złodziejaszków, którzy zamienili odsiadkę na służbę w marynarce, byli też pijacy, ślepcy, ludzie nieznający ani słowa po angielsku, urodzeni panikarze, sodomici, paru klasycznych piromanów i jeden człowiek, który co niedziela próbował popełnić samobójstwo. Prawdziwych marynarzy było na okręcie jak na lekarstwo, a nawet wśród nich syfilis walczył o lepsze z rzeżączką; w tych warunkach dyscyplina stała się pojęciem równie urojonym, jak czysta odzież. ↗

— Marcin Mortka

#niche

In the evening [the Iraqi interim governor of Maysan province] asked me for fifty dollars to repair his windows, which had been destroyed in a recent demonstration. Although he was the governor, his salary was only four hundred and fifty dollars a month, and Baghdad had still not agreed to give the governors an independent budget.... For the sake of a tiny sum of money - a couple thousand dollars a month from the hundred billion we had spent on the invasion - we were alienating our key partner and successor. p. 264 ↗

— Rory Stewart

#politics #money

Harry witnessed Professor McGonagall walking right past Peeves who was determinedly loosening a crystal chandelier and could have sworn he heard her tell the poltergeist out of the corner of her mouth 'It unscrews the other way. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#j-k-rowling #mcgonagall #peeves #poltergeist #determination

What we are dealing with here is another version of the Lacanian 'il n'y a pas de rapport ...': if, for Lacan, there is no sexual relationship, then, for Marxism proper, there is no relationship between economy and politics, no 'meta-language' enabling us to grasp the two levels from the same neutral standpoint, although—or, rather, because—these two levels are inextricably intertwined. ↗

— Slavoj Žižek

#lacan #marxism #politics #sex #economy