Great Quotes II: Source and Context are Key

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Okay.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Our people, therefore, have a greater and deeper understanding of what the revolution means and what it has brought to them. They certainly understand very, very clearly that when some people attack us on the grounds of human rights, when some people attack us on the grounds of constituting a threat to the national security of other countries, our people understand that is foolishness.

They know the real reason has to do with the fact of the revolution and the benefits that the revolution is bringing to the people of our country. The real reason for all of this hostility is because some perceive that what is happening in Grenada can lay the basis for a new socioeconomic and political path of development.

They give all kinds of reasons and excuses - some of them credible, some utter rubbish. We saw an interesting one recently in a secret report to the State Department.

I want to tell you about that one, so you can reflect on it.

That secret report made this point: that the Grenada revolution is in one sense even worse - I'm using their language - than the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions because the people of Grenada and the leadership of Grenada speak English, and therefore can communicate directly with the people of the United States.

Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, June 5, 1983, Hunter College, NYC

 

[Gucumatz]

"An old man is dying in his hovel on the steppes. There is a menacing banging on the door. ‘Whose there?’ the old man asks. ‘Death ‘comes the reply. ‘Thank God for that,’ he says, ‘I thought it was the KGB.’
--
A KGB officer is walking in the park and he sees and old Jewish man reading a book. The KGB says "What are you reading old man?" The old man says "I am trying to teach myself Hebrew." KGB says "Why are you trying to learn Hebrew? It takes years to get a visa for Israel. You would die before the paperwork got done." "I am learning Hebrew so that when I die and go to Heaven I will be able to speak to Abraham and Moses. Hebrew is the language they speak in Heaven." the old man replies. "But what if when you die you go to Hell?" asks KGB? And the old man replies, "Russian, I already know."

- Larry Rasczak Dan Sweeney [Some random guy]

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Adorable: whenever something positive is said, or at least not so negative, about something remotely related to communism, the usual suspects, those paladins, must come running with their anti-communist tropes to remind us all how terrible communism is.

 

[Gucumatz]

Its just a joke ??? No need to purge me for this

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

You aren't funny.

You couldn't be purged, you aren't a party member.

 

[bhsup]

Geez Cheezy, lighten up. Every time I make a Confederate quote, I guarantee you someone comes right back with a Union quote. It isn't like the great quotes thread is the "praise communism and you better not talk back about it" thread. Plus, you know, trying to show Stalin in any sort of non-bad light at all does deserve some sort of comeback.

 

[Gucumatz]

Its alright Mr. NSA, commies are just naturally humorless here on CFC, can't really expect more . Anyhow:

"The seed of revolution is repression." - Woodrow Wilson [One of the more underrated Presidents I think in American history and especially considering the number of incredibly quotable stuff he said]

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Geez Cheezy, lighten up. Every time I make a Confederate quote, I guarantee you someone comes right back with a Union quote. It isn't like the great quotes thread is the "praise communism and you better not talk back about it" thread. Plus, you know, trying to show Stalin in any sort of non-bad light at all does deserve some sort of comeback.

I have every right to respond to the micro-aggressions which characterize the success of Cold War propaganda.

And I have a wonderful sense of humor. Ask anyone who has met me. Some things just aren't funny, whether people want them to be jokes or not.

 

[bhsup]

Okay, fine. Frankly, I didn't view it as a joke so much as countering commie false propaganda, but whatever. I rather like this one.

"freedom and democracy will leave Marxism and Leninism on the ash heap of history." - Ronald Reagan

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Okay, fine. Frankly, I didn't view it as a joke so much as countering commie false propaganda, but whatever. I rather like this one.

Exactly. It's not "false commie propaganda" it's history.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Time for some Terry Pratchett quotes!

"It is a popular fact that nine-tenths of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong... It is used. And one of its functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary and turn the unusual into the usual.
Because if this was not the case, then human beings, faced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing big stupid grins, similar to those worn by certain remote tribesmen who occasionally get raided by the authorities and have the contents of their plastic greenhouses very seriously inspected."

-Small Gods

"Winners never talk about glorious victories. That's because they're the ones who see what the battlefield looks like afterward. It's only the losers who have glorious victories."


-Small Gods

"Much human ingenuity has gone into finding the ultimate Before.
The current state of knowledge can be summarized thus:
In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.
Other theories about the ultimate start involve gods creating the universe out of the ribs, entrails and testicles of their father.† There are quite a lot of these. They are interesting, not for what they tell you about cosmology, but for what they say about people. Hey, kids, which part do you think they made your town out of?
† Gods like a joke as much as anyone else."

-Lords and Ladies

"He could think in italics. Such people need watching.
Preferably from a safe distance."


-Men at Arms

And I could go on, and on. But the message is clear: Terry Pratchett is awesome.

 

[Borachio]

As for micro-managers, wasn't Mussolini one of those too? And didn't it completely paralyze Italy?

So, why didn't Stalin's micromanaging similarly paralyze the Soviet Union? Or did it in fact do so?

 

[gay_Aleks]

As for micro-managers, wasn't Mussolini one of those too? And didn't it completely paralyze Italy?

So, why didn't Stalin's micromanaging similarly paralyze the Soviet Union? Or did it in fact do so?

At least Mussolini's trains came on time.

Stalin's train never come back, or when they do, they're quite, well, empty.

 

[Gucumatz]

Exactly. It's not "false commie propaganda" it's history.

"He is not a true man of the world who knows only the present fashions of it." - Woodrow Wilson

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

So, why didn't Stalin's micromanaging similarly paralyze the Soviet Union? Or did it in fact do so?

Luck, I think. Perhaps he and Mussolini were micro-managers in vastly different ways? Stalin didn't insist on having an absolute say in everything, but he did insist on being "in the loop," and the most important person in any one loop. He certainly never claimed to always have the answers, but he always had an opinion on things, and he expected people to be able to justify themselves to him upon request.

"He is not a true man of the world who knows only the present fashions of it." - Woodrow Wilson

Since is is apparently a response to me: what is your point?

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Okay, fine. Frankly, I didn't view it as a joke so much as countering commie false propaganda, but whatever. I rather like this one.

"freedom and democracy will leave Marxism and Leninism on the ash heap of history." - Ronald Reagan

In my Bishop quote, he was quoting the Reagan state department... hey, I'm still a Republican!

But Communism and Leninism are still here, and Reagan is not...

Happy Holidays, bh... I also have a sense of hubris humor!

 

[Gucumatz]

Since is is apparently a response to me: what is your point?

I think you know . Really all that needs to be said about that.
---------------

"The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it."

Woodrow Wilson

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I think you know . Really all that needs to be said about that.

It sounds like you're saying that I'm narrow minded and "don't know the world beyond what's fashionable," which is about the stupidest thing someone could say about me.

Did you just say the stupidest thing that could be said about me? I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt here and actually asking.

 

[Phrossack]

"It's like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all terribly true."

-Woodrow Wilson, praising Birth of a Nation

"The white men of the South were aroused by the mere instinct of self-preservation to rid themselves, by fair means or foul, of the intolerable burden of governments sustained by the votes of ignorant negroes..."

-Woodrow Wilson, A History of the American People

If anything, Wilson is overrated.