Picture of barbed wire and hands in handcuffs with the words If You're Afraid to Speak Out Against Tyranny You Are Already A Slave

“We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” -- H. L. Mencken (Baltimore Sun 26 July 1920)

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." – Voltaire

“A nation can survive its fools - even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the galleys, heard in the very hall of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor — he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and wears their face and their garment, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation — he works secretly and unknown to undermine the pillars of a city — he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared.” -- Cicero (42 B.C.)

“Fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power.” -- Benito Mussolini

“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, Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment

“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have (hidden) owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork… It’s a big club and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club... The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged and nobody seems to notice… Nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on… It’s called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.” -- George Carlin

“Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -- Benjamin Franklin

“The first truth is that 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 by any other controlling private power... Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.” – President Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Those who make peaceful change impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” – President John F. Kennedy

“It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them.” -- Adolf Hitler

“The more we do to you, the less you seem to believe we are doing it.” -- Joseph Mengele, MD, “Angel of Death” at Auschwitz

“It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.” -- Voltaire

“We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.” -- Justice Louis D. Brandeis

”In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” -- George Orwell

“If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.” – Henry A. Wallace

“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” – Henry Wallace

”The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who during times of great moral crisis maintained their neutrality.” – Dante

“Certified lunatics are shut up because of their proneness to violence when their pretensions are questioned; the uncertified variety are given the control of powerful armies and can inflict death and disaster upon all sane men within their reach.” -- Bertrand Russell

“The people never give up their liberties except under some delusion.” -- Edmund Burke

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” -- Edward Abbey

“Fifty-one percent of a nation can establish a totalitarian regime, suppress minorities and still remain democratic.” -- Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”-- Sinclair Lewis

“Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt.” -- Mahatma Gandhi

“If...the machine of government...is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” -- Henry David Thoreau

“Show, by your actions, that you choose peace over war, freedom over oppression, voice over silence, service over self-interest, respect over advantage, courage over fear, cooperation over competition, action over passivity, diversity over uniformity and justice over all.” -- Anthony J. Marsella, PhD

 

Appears in Issue: