Why, of course the people don't want war...But, after all, it is the leaders of the 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 do 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.
Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials after WWII
Politics is not money and power games. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives. It is about lessening human suffering and it is about -- and what a time to say this -- advancing the cause of justice and peace in the world. That is what politics is all about. (January 1990)
Paul Wellstone (1944 - 2002)
Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world.
-- Martin Luther King Jr, Beyond Vietnam, April 1967
All I know is that my happiness is built on the misery of others, so that I eat because others go hungry, that I am clothed when other people go almost naked through the frozen cities in winter; and that fact poisons me, disturbs my serenity, makes me write propaganda when I would rather play...
-- John Reed
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