Great Quotes III: Source and Context are Key
- Thread starter Borachio
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Phrossack
Armored Fish and Armored Men
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More dangerous than when the American Revolution wasn't going so well, or during the Civil War?
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
It's hyperbole designed to drum up support for the next war.
gay_Aleks
from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Rotschild's name leaves nothing sacred, it seems.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
"The dishonest political position of the French Army was now taking its toll. The soldiers still thoughts of themselves as a revolutionary army. Yet at nights they heard the blacks in the fortress singing the Marseillaise, the Ca Ira, and the other revolutionary songs. Lacroix records how these misguided wretches, as they heard the songs, started and looked at the officers as if to say, "Have our barbarous enemies justice on their side? Are we no longer the soldiers of Republican France? And have we become the crude instruments of policy?"
A regiment of Poles, remembering their own struggle for nationalism, refused to join in the massacre of 600 blacks, ordered by Leclerc, and later, when Dessalines was reorganizing the local army, he would call one of his regiments the Polish regiment."
- C.L.R. James. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Overture and the San Domingo Revolution
"In spite of all this, the English middle class, especially the manufacturing class, which is enriched by the poverty of the workers, persists in ignoring this poverty. This class, feeling itself the mighty representative class of the nation, is ashamed to lay the sore spot of England bare before the eyes of the world; will not confess, even to itself, that the workers are in distress, because it, the property-holding, manufacturing class, must bear the moral responsibility for this distress. Hence the scornful smile which intelligent Englishmen (and they, the middle class, alone are known on the Continent) assume when anyone begins to speak of the condition of the working class; hence the utter ignorance on the part of the whole middle class of everything which concerns the workers; hence the ridiculous blunders which men of this class, in and out of Parliament, make when the position of the proletariat comes under discussion; hence the absurd freedom from anxiety, with which the middle class dwells upon a soil that is honeycombed, and may any day collapse, the speedy collapse of which is as certain as a mathematical or mechanical demonstration; hence the miracle that the English have as yet no single book upon the condition of their workers, although they have been examining and mending the old state of things [for] no one knows how many years. Hence also the deep wrath of the whole working class, from Glasgow to London, against the rich, by whom they are systematically plundered and mercilessly left to their fate, a wrath which before too long a time goes by, a time almost within the power of man to predict, must break out into a revolution in comparison with the French Revolution, and the year 1794, will prove to have been child's play."
- Friedrich Engels, from the introduction to "The Conditions of the Working Class in England
A regiment of Poles, remembering their own struggle for nationalism, refused to join in the massacre of 600 blacks, ordered by Leclerc, and later, when Dessalines was reorganizing the local army, he would call one of his regiments the Polish regiment."
- C.L.R. James. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Overture and the San Domingo Revolution
"In spite of all this, the English middle class, especially the manufacturing class, which is enriched by the poverty of the workers, persists in ignoring this poverty. This class, feeling itself the mighty representative class of the nation, is ashamed to lay the sore spot of England bare before the eyes of the world; will not confess, even to itself, that the workers are in distress, because it, the property-holding, manufacturing class, must bear the moral responsibility for this distress. Hence the scornful smile which intelligent Englishmen (and they, the middle class, alone are known on the Continent) assume when anyone begins to speak of the condition of the working class; hence the utter ignorance on the part of the whole middle class of everything which concerns the workers; hence the ridiculous blunders which men of this class, in and out of Parliament, make when the position of the proletariat comes under discussion; hence the absurd freedom from anxiety, with which the middle class dwells upon a soil that is honeycombed, and may any day collapse, the speedy collapse of which is as certain as a mathematical or mechanical demonstration; hence the miracle that the English have as yet no single book upon the condition of their workers, although they have been examining and mending the old state of things [for] no one knows how many years. Hence also the deep wrath of the whole working class, from Glasgow to London, against the rich, by whom they are systematically plundered and mercilessly left to their fate, a wrath which before too long a time goes by, a time almost within the power of man to predict, must break out into a revolution in comparison with the French Revolution, and the year 1794, will prove to have been child's play."
- Friedrich Engels, from the introduction to "The Conditions of the Working Class in England
Gori the Grey
The Poster
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The Internet has proved to be one of the great ironies of modern life. It opens up an infinite universe for exploration, but people use it to stand still, in a favorite spot, bookmarking the websites that cater to their existing hobbies (and established hobbyhorses) and customizing their social media feeds so that their judgments are constantly reinforced, their opinions forever affirmed.
Frank Bruni in an article on Demanding More from College in today's NYT. The core observation is routine these days, but I like the phrasing of the bolded part.
The whole article is good.
Frank Bruni in an article on Demanding More from College in today's NYT. The core observation is routine these days, but I like the phrasing of the bolded part.
The whole article is good.
Kozmos
Jew Detective
90% of everything is garbage. That includes the internet. Also the infinite universe to explore doesn't include infinite time for it.
The context is easily available online. Which you would have known if you had read my post.
What do you think it means?
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
It's a quote attributed to the possibly-fictional Caladonian warlord Calcagus by the Roman chronicler Tacitus, in a speech before the Battle of Mons Graupius. Tacitus is using his character as a mouthpiece to criticise the concept of the Pax Romana, arguing that the peaceful condition of the Roman Empire was not brought about by good government or mutual affection but by sheer brute force, and that the Empire rules unchallenged not because it was loved or admired by its subjects, but simply because there is nobody left to challenge them. The "desert", also quoted as "desolation" or "solitude", describes what Tacitus saw the Roman habit of simply obliterating peoples who refused to become Romans.
Taticus was keen on the device of what we'd later call the "noble savage", in which a supposedly uncivilised character like an American Indian or, in this case, a Caledonian "barbarian" is attributed great moral or civic virtue, with the intention that his contrast with the "civilised" society of the reader sheds light on that society's lack of virtue. In this case, he uses a tribal chieftain to espouse a republican ideal of good governance, presenting the Roman reader with the suggestion that the Romans themselves have abandon republican principles and fallen into despotism. It allows him to make the criticism in a fashion which more easily slips past the readers guard than just saying "Youse is all a bunch of tossers", because he has already encouraged the reader to buy into the virtue and nobility of the barbarians earlier in the narrative, while also providing a measure of security in that if called directly on his criticism he can say, "No, that wasn't me, it was the barbarian; I was merely quoting".
It is true, to an extent. Obliterating Iraq with nuclear weapons would bring peace- a sort of peace not seen for a billion years, in which the only struggle is between microorganisms.
Cheezy the Wiz
Socialist In A Hurry
Not a "great" quote, but a good one to remember having been said:
“I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers. Secondly, anyone could see that he thought of nothing but the lasting good, as he understood it, of the Italian people, and that no lesser interest was of the slightest consequence to him. If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. I will, however, say a word on an international aspect of fascism. Externally, your movement has rendered service to the whole world. The great fear which has always beset every democratic leader or a working class leader has been that of being undermined by someone more extreme than he. Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism.”
That was Winston Churchill in Rome, on 20 January 1927.
“I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been, by Signor Mussolini’s gentle and simple bearing and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers. Secondly, anyone could see that he thought of nothing but the lasting good, as he understood it, of the Italian people, and that no lesser interest was of the slightest consequence to him. If I had been an Italian I am sure that I should have been whole-heartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism. I will, however, say a word on an international aspect of fascism. Externally, your movement has rendered service to the whole world. The great fear which has always beset every democratic leader or a working class leader has been that of being undermined by someone more extreme than he. Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism.”
That was Winston Churchill in Rome, on 20 January 1927.
"The legitimate criticism of the political actions of a government - be it ours or of the state of Israel - is fine. But if it is only used as a cloak for one's hatred against other people, hatred for Jewish people, then it is a misuse of our basic rights of freedom of opinion and assembly." - Angela Merkel
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
"The scale model for this is "racism" vs. "prejudice" -- the latter is where you find individual cases of white men being harassed or beaten up for being white, the former is a societal problem like 52 percent of crack smokers being white while 79 percent of all sentenced offenders are black."
-David Christopher Bell, A 90-Second Guide to Determine if Your Internet Cause Is BS
-David Christopher Bell, A 90-Second Guide to Determine if Your Internet Cause Is BS
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