Disobedience:
- Dissent is the highest form
of patriotism.[Howard Zinn]
- There comes a time when the
operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart,
that you can’t take part, you can’t even passively take
part; and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon
the wheels, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it
stop, And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, the
people who own it, that unless you’re free the machine will be
prevented from working at all. [Mario Savio, Berkeley, 1964]
- Do not forget that our job
as citizens is to hold conscience above law, so as to continually close
the gap between law and justice.[Howard Zinn]
Economy:
- If you go back to Adam Smith,
whom we're supossed to revere but not read, he assumed that sympathy
was the core human value, and society should therefore be constructed
so that this natural human dedication to sympathy and mutual support
will be satisfied. In fact, his main argument for markets was that they
would, under conditions of perfect liberty, lead to perfect equality
among individuals. At one time the principle of solidarity was taken
for granted.[Noam Chomsky]
- There is no invisible hand.
[Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize]
- Markets don't regulate themselves.
[William H. Donaldson, SEC Chairman, 2003-2005]
Society:
- Responsability correlates
with privilege. The people who are sitting in places like MIT
have choices. They have privilege, they have education, they have training.
That carries responsability. Somebody who is working
fifty hours a week to put food on the table and comes back exhausted
at night and turns on the tube has many fewer choices. Technically,
this person has choices, but they're much harder to exercise, and therefore
he has less responsability. That's just elementary. The people with
privilege and education and the training are also the decision makers,
either in the government or in business or the doctrinal institutions.
So yes, they're the ones responsible, far more than those who don't
have any choices. [Noam Chomsky]
- We have to build a proyect
[of society] where everyone feels that is an important part in the creation
of a country where is desirable, worthy and creative to live. [Humberto
Maturana]
War:
- People can always be brought
to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in
any country. [Nazi Reich Marshall Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg
War Trials]