Life, Love, and Liberty

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power:”

- Benito Mussolini

Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity (11). It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts

- Benito Mussolini

“Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism…. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others.”

~ Emma Goldman

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”

~ William James

“The news and the truth are not the same thing. ”
- Walter Lippmann

“It takes less effort to condemn than to think.”
- Emma Goldman

You might be getting tired of just quotes of the day by now, so I’ll be sure to diversify a bit.

Anyhow, I lost the desire to be on the PC last night, before I posted a quote of the day. I was trying to fall asleep and didn’t want to get any extra stimulation. I ask for your forgiveness by offering two quotes today.

Enjoy!

“Writing is like making love. Don’t worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.
- Isabel Allende

I found the delightful quote above on the Erotica Readers & Writer’s Association
website.

“Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind. “

- Dr.Sesus

“Our topic tonight is hate. Yet so far I’ve spoken about anger rather than hate. One might suppose that what I’ve said about one will apply mutatis mutandis to the other; but I think there is an important difference. Anger is often justified; but hate, I think, is never justified, at least against a person.

Where does the difference lie? Well, we can be angry with a person and still wish that person well; after all, we are often angry with those we love, and we do not stop loving them while we are angry with them. But we cannot hate a person and still wish that person well. I think this makes hate morally problematic in a way that anger is not. For I accept Aristotle’s conception of happiness as a life of virtuous rational activity. Surely we should wish our enemies to be more virtuous and more rational; after all, if they were more virtuous and more rational, they wouldn’t have hijacked two airplanes and sent them crashing into the World Trade Center. Any move, by anybody, in the direction of greater virtue and greater rationality should always be met with approval. But if Aristotle is right about happiness, then to wish for our enemies to be more virtuous and more rational is ipso facto to wish for them to be happier.

I think this must be what such moral teachers as Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha mean when they advise us to wish our enemies well. Obviously we should not wish success to our enemies’ projects; for those projects are evil, and they could not cease to be evil without ceasing to be the projects they are. Hence hatred for those projects is quite in order. But people can always cease to be evil without ceasing to be. If they refuse to cease being evil, we may find it necessary, in self-defense, to make them cease to be; but we should always prefer that our enemies cease being evil. But what is that, but to prefer that our enemies become better people—that they live better, more worthwhile, less destructive, hate-filled lives? And if that is what we ought to prefer, then we ought to wish our enemies well. And while that is compatible with being angry at them, and with killing them if necessary, it is not compatible with hating them.D”

- Roderick Long

People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints, such people have corpses in their mouths.

- Raoul Vaneigem in The Revolution of Everyday Life

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

~ Mark Twain

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“Toward the conclusion of a recent essay, I wrote:

The Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for.

And who says otherwise? The Democrats could — and the most forceful means of doing so, the only method that is appropriate to this historic moment, the method that is absolutely required if we are to turn away from this catastrophic, murderous course, is impeachment. That is the one method the Democrats will categorically, absolutely not utilize — because the Democrats are a crucial, inextricable part of the identical authoritarian-corporatist system that has led us to these horrors. They have all worked toward this end over many decades, Democrats and Republicans alike, and now the horrors manifest themselves explicitly, without apology, even with the sickening boastfulness of the mass murderer who is proud of what he has done, and who vehemently believes he is right.

So the dare goes unanswered. These horrors are what the United States now stands for.

I repeat once more: these horrors are now what the United States stands for. Thus, for every adult American, the question is not, “Why do you obey?” but:

Why do you support?

Or will you refuse to give your support? Will you say, “No”? These are the paramount questions at this moment in history, and in the life of the United States. We all must answer them. Our honor, our humanity, and our souls lie in the balance.”

~ Arthur Silber

Please donate to Arthur’s continued existence.

“We have a strong civil society that could, in theory, overcome the entrenched interests of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex. At this late date, however, it is difficult to imagine how Congress, much like the Roman senate in the last days of the republic, could be brought back to life and cleansed of it endemic corruption. Failing such a reform, Nemesis, the goddess of retribution and vengeance, the punisher of pride and hubris, waits impatiently for her meeting with us.”

~ Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire [2004]

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