Political Power Quotes - Page 3

• A world where Congressmen spend 30 to 70 percent of their time raising money from a tiny, tiny fraction of the 1% is a world where that tiny, tiny fraction has enormous power. And it's that inequality in political power that enables this corrupted system to happen.

  Lawrence Lessig

  Political, World, Tiny

  "'Your Representative Doesn't Give a Shit About You': Larry Lessig's Plan to Fix Democracy". Interview with Hamilton Nolan, gawker.com. October 13, 2015.

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• It is not the qualified voters, but the qualified voters who choose to vote, that constitute political power.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Political, Voters, Qualified

  Abraham Lincoln (1989). “Abraham Lincoln: Speeches & Writings Part 2: 1859-1865: Library of America #46”, p.421, Library of America

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• The abuse of political power is not as important as the loss of lives. Plus there is a process for curing the abuse of institutions.

  Babatunde Fashola

  Loss, Political, Abuse

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• By the very nature of government schooling, the matter of what goes into school textbooks must necessarily be a political matter, to be decided by those I political power.

  Jacob G. Hornberger

  School, Government, Political

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• Stripped of its academic jargon, the welfare state is nothing more than a mechanism by which governments confiscate the wealth of the productive members of a society to support a wide variety of welfare schemes.

  Alan Greenspan

  Government, Support, Political

  "Greenspan’s Testimony: Will the ‘Maestro’ Face the Music?" by Richard (RJ) Eskow, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 5, 2010.

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• One way we exercise political freedom is to vote for the candidate of our choice. Another way is to use our money to try to persuade other voters to make a similar choice - that is, to contribute to our candidate's campaign. If either of these freedoms is violated, the consequences are very grave not only for the individual voter and contributor, but for the society whose free political processes depend on a wide distribution of political power.

  Barry Goldwater

  Exercise, Political, Choices

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• Private property creates for the individual a sphere in which he is free of the state. It sets limits to the operation of the authoritarian will. It allows other forces to arise side by side with and in opposition to political power. It thus becomes the basis of all those activities that are free from violent interference on the part of the state. It is the soil in which the seeds of freedom are nurtured and in which the autonomy of the individual and ultimately all intellectual and material progress are rooted.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Political, Intellectual, Progress

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• Our inspired Constitution is wisely designed to protect from excesses of political power, but it can do little to protect us from the excesses of appetite or from individual indifference to great principles or institutions. Any significant unraveling of the moral fiber of the American people, therefore, finally imperils the Constitution.

  Neal A. Maxwell

  Moral Fiber, People, Political

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• All political power is primarily an illusion. Illusion. Mirrors and blue smoke, beautiful blue smoke rolling over the surface of highly polished mirrors, first a thin veil of blue smoke, then a thick cloud that suddenly dissolves into wisps of blue smoke, the mirrors catching it all, bouncing it back and forth.

  Jimmy Breslin

  Beautiful, Clouds, Mirrors

  How the Good Guys Finally Won: Notes from an Impeachment Summer (1975). Usually quoted as "smoke and mirrors."

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• Society has to change, but the political powers we have at the moment are not enough to effect this change. The whole democratic system would have to be rethought.

  Jose Saramago

  Hymns, Political, Moments

  "Still a street-fighting man". Interview with Stephanie Merritt, www.theguardian.com. April 30, 2006.

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• I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives

  Robert Caro

  Men, Political, Democracy

  FaceBook post by Robert A. Caro from Aug 26, 2011

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• Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d'état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes.... Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications.

  Umberto Eco

  Country, Communication, Army

  "Il costume di casa" (1973); as translated in "Travels in Hyperreality" (1986),

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• The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth.

  Howard Zinn

  Media, People, Political

  Howard Zinn (2013). “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress”, p.16, City Lights Books

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• Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

  Hermann Goring

  Country, Peace, Military

  Interview in Göring's jail cell, April 18, 1946. "Nuremberg Diary". Book by Gustave Gilbert, 1947.

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• Catholicism is more than a religion, it is a political power. Therefore I'm led to believe there will be no peace in Ireland until the Catholic Church is crushed

  Oliver Cromwell

  Believe, Political, Catholic

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• So long as free land exists, the opportunity for a competency exists, and economic power secures political power.

  Frederick Jackson Turner

  Opportunity, Land, Long

  Frederick Jackson Turner (2012). “Shaping the American Character: The Significance of the Frontier in American History”, p.35, Now and Then Reader LLC

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• Are we prepared to take on the enormous political power of the billionaire class or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?

  Bernie Sanders

  Class, Political, Oligarchy

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• Revolutions and revolutionary wars are inevitable in class society, and without them it is impossible to accomplish any leap in social development and to overthrow the reactionary ruling classes and therefore impossible for the people to win political power.

  Mao Zedong

  Peace, War, Winning

  "On Contradiction" by Mao Zedong, 1937.

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• Generally speaking, the less privileged groups in democratic society, as they become aware of their interests and their political power, will be found to press for ever more state intervention in practically all fields.

  Gunnar Myrdal

  Political, Groups, Fields

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• Civics is not only how to run the country before it's your turn to run the country; it is, in fact, the study of power, practical political power. And you must start that process at an age level when kids' brains are still open and malleable.

  Richard Dreyfuss

  Running, Country, Kids

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• Capitalist exploitation and cartels and monopolies are the enemies of underdeveloped countries. On the other hand a regime which is completely oriented towards the people as a whole and based on the principle that man is the most precious of all possessions, will allow us to go forward more quickly and more harmoniously, and thus make impossible that caricature of society where all economic and political power is held in the hands of a few who regard the nation as a whole with scorn and contempt.

  Frantz Fanon

  Country, Men, Hands

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• I can very well say without hesitation that all those who have political power, even if they use it well have acquired it by demonic mediation and even if they are not conscious of it, they are worshippers of diabolos.

  Jacques Ellul

  Political, Use, Politics

  "Si tu es le Fils de Dieu" by Jacques Ellul, (p. 76), 1991.

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• Increasingly independent black economic, cultural and political power gave Blacks more freedom to do what came natural to them. Divorced from White influence and culture, they reverted quickly to their genotype - increasingly typical of black societies around the world. Males exhibited exaggerated sexual aggression and promiscuity that led to the dissolution of the Black nuclear family in America. Females reverted to the age-old African model of maternal provisioning of children.

  David Duke

  Children, Independent, America

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• The UN should arrange, as US forces leave, for an international group of peacekeepers and negotiators from the Arab countries to bring together Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, and work out a solution for self-governance that would give all three groups a share in political power. Simultaneously, the UN should arrange for shipments of food and medicine, from the United States and other countries, as well as engineers to help rebuild the country.

  Howard Zinn

  Country, Self, Medicine

  "How can America get out of Iraq?" by Noam Chomsky, Jonathan Schell, Howard Zinn, William Polk, www.theguardian.com. May 12, 2004.

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• Islam has some of the best defenses against other god viruses and has the potential to be more parasitically aggressive when consolidating political power with a society.

  Darrel Ray

  Political, Religion, Islam

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