#united

Hollywood... was the place where the United States perpetrated itself as a universal dream and put the dream into mass production. ↗

— Angela Carter

#hollywood #into #itself #mass #mass production

What struck me as I began to study history was how nationalist fervor--inculcated from childhood on by pledges of allegiance, national anthems, flags waving and rhetoric blowing--permeated the educational systems of all countries, including our own. I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#united-states #war #education

All the United States, it is a society that is split like to the bottom, that had very poor people in the country that is one of the wealthiest countries. ↗

— Desmond Tutu

#countries #country #had #like #people

the city is full of three types of people, the first being soldiers, the other classes are politicians and prostitutes, both very numerous, and about equal in honesty and morality. ↗

— Mark Jones

#humour-quote #equality

We know of no spectacle more ridiculous—or more contemptible—than that of the religious reactionaries who dare to re-write the history of our republic. Or who try to do so. Is it possible that, in their vanity and stupidity, they suppose that they can erase the name of Thomas Jefferson and replace it with the name of some faith-based mediocrity whose name is already obscure? If so, we cheerfully resolve to mock them, and to give them the lie in their teeth. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#history #thomas-jefferson #united-states #faith

[Martin Luther King] said that little black boys and little black girls would be able to join hands with little white boys and little white girls as sisters and brothers. Then he reminded both those spectators before him and all Americans that this hope of his, this faith, was rooted in the promise of America. ↗

— Keith Ellison

#civil-rights #inspirational #politics #promises #united

Japan likewise put her hopes of victory on a different basis from that prevalent in the United States. (...) Even when she was winning, her civilian statesmen, her High Command, and her soldiers repeated that this was no contest between armaments; it was pitting of our faith in things against their faith in spirit. ↗

— Ruth Benedict

#japan #materialism #spirit #united-states #victory

As Lynn writes: "What angers me is the loss of control. At any moment someone could come to me, be dressed the right way and use the right code, and I no longer have free will. I will do anything that person requests. I hate them for that. Nothing else is as bad as knowi that I am always out of control; knowing that I am still a laboratory experiment, a puppet whose strings are hidden from ever but my handlers, and I don't yet know how to break free. p216

— Lynn Hersha

#control #free-will #government-abuse #manipulation #military

With each passing day, I become more and more convinced that the greatest threat to American freedom is the United States government. ↗

— Michel Templet

#politics #united-states #freedom

[I]n my own case at least I feel my professional need for freedom of speech and expression prejudices me toward a government whose constitution guarantees it. ↗

— John Updike

#free-speech #politics #united-states #united-states-constitution #war