The Liberal Class

«The collapse of past constitutional states, whether in Weimar Germany or the former Yugoslavia, was also presaged by the death of the liberal class. The loss of the liberal class creates a power vacuum filled by speculators, war profiteers, gangsters, and killers, often led by charismatic demagogues. It opens the door to totalitarian movements that rise to prominence by ridiculing and taunting the liberal class and the values it claims to champion. The promises of these totalitarian movements are fantastic and unrealistic, but their critiques of the liberal class are grounded in truth».

Chris Hedges. «Death of the Liberal Class.»

The Orthodoxy

«At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was “not done” to mention trousers in the presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals.»

George Orwell, «Freedom of the Press»

Politics

«Primitive Christians also knew very explicitly that the world is ruled by demons and that anyone who becomes involved in politics, that is to say, anyone who agrees to use power and violence as means, has sealed a pact with the devil, so that it is no longer true that in his activity the good produces only good and the bad bad, but that the contrary frequently happens. Anyone who does not see this is a child, politically speaking».

Max Weber, Politics as a Vocation (1919)

From Mario Vargas Llosa, «A Fish in the Water: A Memoir».

The Secret

«The more things you know, or pretend to know, the more powerful you are. It doesn’t matter if the things are true. What counts, remember, is to possess a secret.»

Umberto Eco

Too Big to Fail

“Unless and until an institution such as Citigroup is either broken up, so that it is no longer a threat to the financial system, or a structure is put in place to assure that it will be left to suffer the full consequences of its own folly, the prospect of more bailouts will potentially fuel more bad behavior with potentially disastrous results.”

Report of the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program – January 2011

The Real Enemies of the Market Economy

«Ironically, the biggest enemy of the market economy is the complacency of its friends and the ignorance of its beneficiaries».

«The War for Wealth»

Unembedded Journalists

«For unembedded journalists, particularly Arab media workers, who risk and
often lose their lives to be the eyes and ears of the world. Without their courage
and sacrifice, history would indeed be written by self-declared victors, the rich,
and the powerful».

From «Blackwater:The Rise of the World Most Powerful Mercenary Army»

The Pursuit of Happiness

"We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created
equal; that they are endowed by their creator with [certain] inherent
and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty & the
pursuit of happiness: that to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed".

From a draft of The Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson

Paradise

«In a State where there is no fever of speculation, no inflamed desire for sudden wealth, where the poor are all simple-minded and contented, and the rich are all honest and generous…there are necessarily no materials for such a history as we have constructed…»

Mark Twain / Charles Dudley Warner

Truth vs Myth

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, continued, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”

J. F. Kennedy