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People are very hungry for something new. I
think they are interested in being called to
be a part of something larger than the sort
of small, petty, slash-and-burn politics that
we have been seeing over the last several years.
-- Barack Obama
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The
environmental movement has led some of the most
successful global campaigns in terms of raising
public and political consciousness about the
relationship of environment and development
and offering alternatives for better governance
at all levels from community to the international
arena.
~ Michele Perrault
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 |
"The
Greek word for idiot, literally translated, means
one who does not participate in politics. That sums
up my conviction on the subject."
Gladys Pyle, Senator (1890-1989)
"'If
democracy and self-rule are the fundamentals, then
why should people give up these rights when they enter
their workplace? In politics we fight like tigers
for freedom, for the right to elect our leaders, for
freedom of movement, choice of residence, choice of
what work to pursue - control of our lives, in short.
And then we wake up in the morning and go to work,
and all those rights disappear. We no longer insist
on them. And so for most of the day we return to feudalism.
That is what capitalism is - a version of feudalism
in which capital replaces land, and business leaders
replace kings. But the hierarchy remains. And so we
still hand over our lives' labor, under duress, to
feed rulers who do no real work.... 'So. We must challenge.
It is time. If self-rule is a fundamental value, if
simple justice is a value, then they are values everywhere,
including in the workplace where we spend so much
of our lives'...."
-- Kim Stanley Robinson
I
believe that government is the servant of the people
and not their master.
-- David Rockefeller
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On
account of being a democracy and run by the
people, we are the only nation in the world
that has to keep a government four years, no
matter what it does.
-- Will Rogers
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The
liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people
tolerate the growth of private power to a point
where it becomes stronger than their democratic
state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism
- ownership of government by an individual, by
a group, or any controlling private power.
~ Franklin
D. Roosevelt |
Let
us never forget that government is ourselves and not
an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our
democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen
and government officials, but the voters of this country.
~ Franklin
D. Roosevelt
 |
But
remember that if the struggle were to resort to
violence, it will lose vision, beauty and imagination.
Most dangerous of all, it will marginalize and
eventually victimize women. And a political struggle
that does not have women at the heart of it, above
it, below it, and within it is no struggle at
all.
-- Arundhati Roy
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*
"You
must believe that you can help bring about
a better world. A good society is produced
only by good individuals, just as truly as
a majority in a presidential election is produced
by the votes of single electors."
-- Bertrand
Russell
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|
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The whole basis of the United Nations is the
right of all nations - great or small - to have
weight, to have a vote, to be attended to, to
be a part of the twentieth century.
-- Adlai Stevenson
|
Democracy
and capitalism have very different beliefs about the
proper distribution of power. One believes in a completely
equal distribution of political power, 'one man, one
vote', while the other believes that it is the duty
of the economically fit to drive the unfit out of
business and into economic extinction. 'Survival of
the fittest' and inequalities in purchasing power
is what capitalist efficiency is all about. Individuals
and firms become efficient to be rich. To put it in
its starkest form, capitalism is perfectly compatible
with slavery. The American South had such a system
for more than two centuries. Democracy is not comparable
with slavery.
-- Lester Thurow
"The
government in which I believe is that which is
based on mere moral sanction...the real law lives
in the kindness of our hearts. If our hearts are
empty, no law or political reform can fill them."
-- Leo
Tolstoy |
 |
|
“Where
every man in a state has a vote, brutal laws
are impossible.”
-- Mark Twain
Patriotism
is supporting your country all the time, and
your government when it deserves it.
-- Mark Twain
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|
The
government is merely a servant -- merely a temporary
servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine
what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is
a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders,
not originate them.
-- Mark Twain
“Fifty
percent of people won't vote, and fifty percent don't
read newspapers. I hope it's the same fifty percent.”
-- Gore Vidal
As
societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent,
too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate,
action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words
are to confuse, so that at election time people will
solemnly vote against their own interests.
-- Gore Vidal
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