Connexions Quotations
Governments
Quotes
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As far as American business is concerned, Nicaragua could disappear and nobody would notice.
The same is true of El Salvador. But both have been subjected to murderous assaults by the US,
at a cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and many billions of dollars. There’s a reason for that.
The weaker and poorer a country is, the more dangerous it is as an example.
If a tiny poor country like Grenada can succeed in bringing about a better life for its people,
some other place that has more resources will ask, ‘why not us?’
- Noam Chomsky
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Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.
- I.F. Stone
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Free trade is fine for economics departments and newspaper editorials, but nobody in the corporate world or the government takes the doctrines seriously.
The parts of the U.S. economy that are able to compete internationally are primarily the state-subsidized ones:
capital-intensive agriculture (agribusiness, as it’s called), high-tech industry, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, etc.
- Noam Chomsky
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
- Thomas Paine
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How can a government, entrusted with the safety and health of its people,
conscientiously barter away in the name of an economic idea that people’s ability to feed itself?
And if people lose their ability to feed themselves, how can they be said to be free?
- Wendell Berry
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If you want to privatize something and destroy it, a standard method is first to defund it,
so it doesn’t work anymore, people get upset and accept privatization. This is happening in the schools.
They are defunded, so they don’t work well. So people accept a form of privatization just to get out of the mess.
- Noam Chomsky
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In every scheme that worsens the position of the poor, it is the poor who are invoked as beneficiaries.
- Vandana Shiva
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In this country too, policy is insulated from politics. People can have their opinions; they can even vote if they like.
But the policy goes on its merry way, determined by other forces.
What the public wants is called ‘politically unrealistic.’
Translated into English, that means the major centers of power and privilege are opposed to it.
- Noam Chomsky
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Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
- Bertrand Russell
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We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
- Aesop
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To learn more about Governments, explore the Connexions Subject Index Government page.
