Quotes on America
...both postive and negative.
“The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America (is that it) has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists.” From “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72” by Hunter S. Thompson
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“Big money and big business, corporations and commerce, are again the undisputed overlords of politics and government. The White House, the Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary, reflect their interests. We appear to have a government run by remote control from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute. To hell with everyone else.” Bill Moyers, PBS Commentator
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“The principal power in Washington is no longer the government of the people it represents. It is the Money Power. Under the deceptive cloak of campaign contributions, access and influence, votes and amendments are bought and sold. Money established priorities of action, holds down federal revenues, revises federal legislation, shifts income from the middle class to the very rich. Money restrains the enforcement of laws written to protect the country from abuses of wealth—laws that mandate environmental protection, antitrust laws, laws to protect the consumer against fraud, laws that safeguard the securities markets, and many more.” Richard N. Goodwin, speechwriter for John F. Kennedy
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“I took an oath when I joined the Navy. I swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Nowhere does it state that I must blindly follow the orders of unjust or immoral leaders. This is the reason that I am compelled to speak out against our use of Depleted Uranium. It is the biggest, invisible danger that our troops and the Iraqi people face and most insidious. What we are committing is a silent genocide of both planet and people.” Kim Hawkins, Gulf War Veteran
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“It was a failure of citizenship of the American people that the Bush cabal was allowed to invade Iraq . Thus, any U.S. citizen who is not doing everything in their power to end this illegal and immoral occupation as quickly as possible is complicit with the war crimes being committed in Iraq on a daily basis.” Dahr Jamail
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“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.” Daniel Webster (1782-1852), US Senator, 1851
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“Today the world is the victim of propaganda because people are not intellectually competent. More than anything the United States needs effective citizens competent to do their own thinking.” William Mather Lewis, President of George Washington University, 1923 -1927
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“Today the world faces a single man armed with weapons of mass destruction, manifesting an aggressive, bullying attitude, who may well plunge the world into chaos and bloodshed if he miscalculates. This person, belligerent, arrogant, and sure of himself, truly is the most dangerous person on Earth. The problem is that his name is George W. Bush, and he is our president.” Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Ammendment, Yale Law School , September 22, 2002
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“I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!' They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.'” Schurz, “The Policy of Imperialism,” Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz, vol. 6, pp. 119–20 (1913)
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“I firmly believe that when any territory outside the present territorial limits of the United States becomes necessary for our defense or essential for our commercial development, we ought to lose no time in acquiring it.” Sen. Orville Platt of Connecticut , 1894
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“If the people are not convinced (that the Free World is in mortal danger) it would be impossible for Congress to vote the vast sums now being spent to avert danger. With the support of public opinion, as marshaled by the press, we are off to a good start. It is our Job - yours and mine—to keep our people convinced that the only way to keep disaster away from our shores is to build up America 's might.” Charles Wilson, Chairman of the Board of General Electric and Truman appointee to head the Office of Defense Mobilization, in a speech to the Newspaper Publishers Association, 1950
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“We don't torture people in America and people who say we do simply know nothing about our country.” George W. Bush, interview with Australian TV, October 18, 2003
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“Shamefully we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management.” Edward Kennedy
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“They are torturing people. They are torturing people on Guantanamo Bay …they are engaging in acts which amount to torture in the medieval sense of the phrase. They are engaging in good old-fashioned torture, as people would have understood it in the Dark Ages.” Australian attorney Richard Bourke
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“Our enemies didn't adhere to the Geneva Convention. Many of my comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading treatment, a few of them even unto death. But every one of us—every single one of us—knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or countenancing such mistreatment of them.” Republican Senator John McCain
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“For most Americans the Constitution had become a hazy document, cited like the Bible on ceremonial occasions but forgotten in the daily transactions of life.” Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1888-1965)
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“The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colours breaking through.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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“How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.” Henry David Thoreau
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“Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our Fathers made it inviolate. The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln
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“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” Theodore Roosevelt, 1918