#political

She thought it funny how the poor environment had been raped just fine until there was a sufficient excess of the people who had effected the raping to produce sufficient numbers of themselves who were sufficiently idle that they might begin to protest the raping of the environment, which was irretrievably lost to the raping by that point. And this would be the great soothing cathedral music, the stopping of the chainsaws amid the patter of acid rain, that all good citizens would listen to for the quarter-century it took them all to wire up to cyberspace and forget about the lost hopeless run-over gang-ridden land, reproducing madly still all the while, inside their bunkers listening to NPR. ↗

— Padgett Powell

#political-causes #the-pennant-race #truth #men

...an animal, at the end of a few months, is what it will be all its life; and its species, at the end of a thousand years, is what it was in the first of those thousand years. Why is man alone subject to becoming an imbecile? ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#nature #philosophy #political-science #political-theory #nature

Man is Nature's most wonderful creature. Torturing him, crushing him, murdering him for his beliefs and ideas is more than a violation of human rights-it is a crime against all humanity. ↗

— Armando Valladares

#political #nature

Dans chaque démocratie libérale s'est élaboré un imaginaire de citoyenneté au sein duquel la projection dans l'avenir est devenue plus significative que le poids du passé. Cet imaginaire s'est traduit par des normes juridiques, et a même pénétré par la suite à l'intérieur du système éducatif étatique.[...] La souffrance du passé justifie le prix exigé de la part des citoyens dans le présent. L'héroïsme des temps qui s'éloignent promet un avenir rayonnant pour l'individu, du moins sûrement pour la nation. L'idée nationale est devenue, avec l'aide des historiens, une idéologie optimiste par nature. De là, notamment, vient son succès. ↗

— Shlomo Sand

#nature

Our experience of the governments of the world, our knowledge of the weapons at their disposal, and our awareness of our own limitations justify pessimism. But some mysterious factor deep in the human psyche has produced a countervailing conviction that educating, organizing, uniting, and acting will make a difference. ↗

— David T. Dellinger

#pessimism #political #resistance #education

It's not oil that runs the world, it's shame. ↗

— Sherman Alexie

#racial-politics #social-commentary #political-philosophy

Steadiness of faith, was, in the long run, as illuminating and essential as sophistication of thought. ↗

— Jon Meacham

#political #faith

Cathy smiled back ‘Rules were meant to be broken.’ ‘Don’t disagree,’ Oversteegen replied immediately. ‘Indeed they are. Providin’, however, that the one breakin’ the rules is willin’ t’ pay the price for it, and the price gets charged in full. Which you were, Lady Catharine. I saluted you for it then–at the family dinner table that night, in fact. My mother was infinitely more indisposed thereafter; tottered back t’ her bed cursin’ me for an ingrate. My father was none too pleased either. I salute you for it, again. Otherwise, breakin’ rules becomes the province of brats instead of heroes. Fastest way I can think t’ turn serious political affairs int’ a playpen. A civilized society needs a conscience, and conscience can’t be developed without martyrs—real ones—against which a nation can measure its crimes and sins. ↗

— David Weber

#sacrifice #family

A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom. ↗

— Chris Hedges

#freedom

Both groups [of pundits] were critics, and that is the heart of the problem. If you are a pundit, you seem so smart when you are telling the President what he did wrong… This [is] mostly BS. ↗

— Jeffrey A. Miller

#democracy-fascism #democracy-freedom #democracy-voting #democrats #elections