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Democracy Quotes

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Democracy Quotes

“If you look at the Associated Press wires, there's a constant flow of information coming in. At that time I happened to have direct access to AP wires. The day the marines landed in Haiti and restored [ Jan Bètran] Aristide there was a lot of excitement about the dedication to democracy and so on. But the day before the marines landed, when every journalist was looking at Haiti because it was assumed that something big was happening, the AP wires reported that then [Bill] Clinton administration had authorized Texaco to ship oil illegally to the military junta.”

“[Fall of the Berlin Wall] is a reminder that the commitment of the United States, to Europe is enduring and it's rooted in the values we share; our commitment to democracy, our commitment to rule of law, our commitment to the dignity of all people in our own countries and around the world.”

“In Europe, where the terrorist threat is probably greatest at the moment, the amount of information-sharing that's been taking place, the effectiveness of law enforcement across borders gives us the ability to protect ourselves while still being true to the basic precepts of our liberal democracies. I hope that that continues, and it is something that I think we should be worried about.”

“If you've worked together with somebody very well, leave-taking is very difficult. But we are all politicians. We all know that democracy lives off change. So, in the United States of America, the Constitution has very clear stipulations on this. It's a tough rule. Eight years and that's it, out goes the president and a new one comes in.”

“All of those on the left, as I am, have always vastly preferred the democratic society over the hierarchical society and still do, but the democratic culture doesn't exist without highly informed citizens capable of thinking well, and if you have schools in which 40 percent of the people coming out of them cannot make change for a dollar, you don't have a democracy. You have a sibling society.”

“The Arab spring reminds me a bit of the decolonisation process where one country gets independence and everybody else wants it. How about us, when do we get it, when do we make our move? And you have a situation where someone has been in power for decades, where the integrity of elections, democracy and security have really not been debated or discussed and most people suspect that elections are rigged and that the democratic rotation that elections are supposed to ensure doesn't really happen. And when this goes on for a while you are sitting on a powder keg.”

“Our concern is to help people counter the efforts of those who seek to "regiment the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers," so that the self-designated "responsible men" will be able to run the affairs of the world untroubled by the "bewildered herd" - the general public - who are to be marginalized and dispersed, directed to personal concerns, in a well-regulated "democracy."”

“Just the fact that we can't pass budgets in our Congress, just the fact that we are gridlocked in our own democracy, the fact that everybody who travels can see that we're not investing in our airports, in our rail, in our infrastructure and so forth, people are noticing a United States that is not getting the job done in some ways.”

“The Second World War ended with a radicalization of the population in the United States and everywhere else, and called for all kinds of things like popular takeovers, government intervention, and worker takeovers of factories. Business propagated a tremendous propaganda offensive. The scale surprised me when I read the scholarship - it's enormous, and it's been very effective. There were two major targets: one is unions, the other is democracy.”