Entries by tag: government
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/27/ireland-votes-to-oust-blasphemy-ban-from-constitution
...Glib, facile solutions stand at the very heart of the populist appeal. Voters do not like to think that the world is complicared. They certainly do not like to be told that there is no immediate answer to their problems. Faced with politicians who seem to be less and less able to govern an increasingly complex world, many are increasingly willing to vote for anybody who promises a simple solution. This is why populists from India's Narendra Modi to Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, from Hungary's Viktor Orban to Poland"s Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and from France's Marine Le Pen to Italy's Beppe Grillo sound surprisingly similar to each other despite their considerable ideological differences.
--Yasha Mounk, p38 of The People vs. Democracy
**first use of tag: populism
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.
—Joseph Goebbels
Source: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-quot-big-lie-quot
--Madeleine Albright in Fascism: A Warning, page 246 (in what I think is the final chapter).
--Madeline Albright on page 116 of Fascism, A Warning. This quote comes on the heels of a section about globalism and about the manipulation of public opinion using the internet. The first part of this book was the best short history of Europe I have ever read--for once it made sense. Excellent read: recommend.
--Henry Louis Mencken in 'Notes On Journalism' in the Chicago Tribune (19 September 1926)
I have come to suspect that we have not evolved to the point that our cognitive processes consistently overrule our animal instincts. The idea that we can base our choices on verifiable information appears damned. Civility is superficial and short-lived. Democracy fails in the face of the self-righteous greed of our kind. The solution of course would be a benevolent dictator, but the problem with those is that they are human too and the majority are not benevolent.
Please, America, prove me wrong.
—Frederick Douglass
From a poster seen in the holocaust museum:
Early Warning Signs of Fascism
Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Disdain For Human Rights
Identification of Enemies
As a unifying cause
Supremacy of the military
Rampant Sexism
Controlled Mass Media
Obsession With National Security
Religion and Government Intertwined
Corporate Power Protected
Labor Power Suppressed
Disdain For Intellectuals & and the Arts
Obsession With Crime & Punishment
Rampant Cronyism & Corruption
Fraudulent Elections
( For contemplation...Collapse )
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