David > David's Quotes

“I have been in many awful places, but have never seen such fear as in the eyes of those who are trying to survive in Haiti's indescribable slums during the Clinton backed terror, or such misery as among poor peasants in southern Colombia, driven from their devastated lands by US chemical warfare -fumigation- and much more like it around the world. Even after violence achieves its goals and it's relaxed, it leaves a residual culture of terror as the surviving Salvadorean Jesuits observed. Yet somehow, communities endure and survive.”
― Noam Chomsky, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy

“It is no easy task to gain some understanding of human affairs. In some respects, the task is harder than in the natural sciences. Mother nature doesn't provide the answers on a silver platter, but at least she does not go out of her way to set up barriers to understanding. In human affairs, such barriers are the norm. It is necessary to dismantle the structures of deception erected by doctrinal systems which adopt a range of devices that flow very naturally from the ways in which power is concentrated.”
― Noam Chomsky, Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy

“The gospels are radical pacifist material. When the emperor Constantine adopted Christianity he shifted it. He shifted Christianity from a radical pacifist religion to the religion of the Roman empire. So the cross, which was symbol of the suffering of the poor was put on the shield of roman soldiers. Since that time the church has been pretty much the church of the rich and the powerful.”
― Noam Chomsky, What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World

“When you conquer somebody and suppress them, you have to have a reason for it. You can't just say 'I'm a son of a bitch' and I wanted to rob them. So you have to say it's for their good or they deserve it or they actually benefit from it and we're helping them and so on.”
― Noam Chomsky, What We Say Goes: Conversations on U.S. Power in a Changing World

“The business of voting your conscience is: Do you really care just about how you feel? or, Do you care about what happens to the world? If you care about what you feel you don't have any conscience, you're not a moral agent at all, so stop talking about conscience, you don't have any.”
― Noam Chomsky, Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy

“Lesser evil voting should be simply called elementary rationality and elementary morality.”
― Noam Chomsky, Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy

“Uno de los principales desvelos de los colombianos fue siempre la búsqueda de la corrección en el lenguaje. A ello se debe la vaga fama de hablar el mejor español en el continente, que más bien revela una larga persistencia del modelo colonial, una enorme resistencia a la incorporción de aportes originales, una fijación en el culto de la metrópoli y la entronización de lo castizo como canon inapelable.”
― William Ospina, Colombia, donde el verde es de todos los colores

“La ideología oficial que impera en Colombia, la que rige la mentalidad de sus dirigentes y orienta el discurso de sus grandes medios de comunicación, ha seguido presa de ese lamentable discurso colonial que solo vio sus paradigmas en las metrópolis, que centró su dinámica en la imitación de modelos ilustres, que se sintió siempre en una región marginal del mundo, y giró siglo a siglo como una luna febril alrededor de los viejos centros de la esfera: la Corona española, el Vaticano, la Revolución francesa, el mercantilismoo inglés, el industrialismo y el consumismo de los Estados Unidos.”
― William Ospina, Colombia, donde el verde es de todos los colores

“La historia de Colombia es una historia de largas discordias, instauradas por la brutalidad de la Conquista, perpetuadas por las crueldades de la servidumbre y de la esclavitud, renovadas por los conflictos de la Independencia, eternizadas por las guerras partidistas, males de los que todos terminamos siendo a la vez reponsables y víctimas. Tenemos que aceptar la responsabilidad de este país que hemos hecho y deshecho entre todos.”
― William Ospina, Lo que se gesta en Colombia

“Un progreso efectivo de la humanidad habría que plantearlo en términos éticos más que en términos simplemente mecánicos o técnicos. Aprender a respetar la naturaleza, aprender a convivir, aprender a comprender y valorar lo que es distinto, tener una relación creadora con el mundo y no una mera actitud de saqueo y derroche, permitir que los niños crezcan en un medio generoso y estimulante que forme su carácter, que descubra sus talentos, que aliente su actividad y que despierte su imaginación; la posibilidad de un mundo que acompañe y oriente de un modo sabio y autero su desarrollo: eso sería un progreso.”
― William Ospina, Los nuevos centros de la esfera

“Once you know that there is really no such thing as a 'free market', you won't be deceived by people who denounce a regulation on the grounds that it makes the market unfree. When you learn that large and active governments can promote rather than dampen economic dynamism, you will see that the widespread distrust of government is unwarranted. Knowing that we do not live in a post-industrial knowledge economy will make you question the wisdom of neglecting, or even implicitly welcoming, industrial decline of a country, as some governments have done. Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich for what they are: a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told.”
― Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

“So the two champions of free trade, Britain and the US, were not only not free trade economies, but have been the two most protectionist economies among rich countries, i.e. until they each in succession became the world's dominant industrial power.”
― Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

“Unlike what neo-liberals say, market and democracy clash at a fundamental level. Democracy runs on the principle of 'one man (one person), one vote'. The market runs on the principle 'one dollar, one vote'.”
― Ha-Joon Chang, Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism

“The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“Due to our own actions or inactions, and the misuse of our technology, we live at an extraordinary moment, for the Earth at least - the first time that a species has become able to wipe itself out. But this is also, we may note, the first time that a species has become able to journey to the planets and the stars.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

“Rainbows are not just beautiful to look at. In a way, they tell us when everything began, including time and space. I think that makes the rainbow even more beautiful.”
― Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True

“We don't have to invent wildly implausible stories: we have the joy and excitement of real scientific investigation and discovery to keep our imaginations in line. And in the end that is more exciting than fantasy.”
― Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True

“Control of Latin America was the earliest goal of US foreign policy and remains a central one partly for resources and markets but also for broader ideological reasons. If the United States could not control Latin America it could not expect to achieve a successful order elsewhere in the world”
― Noam Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects

“Colombia has had by far the worst human rights record in the hemisphere since the Central American wars of the 1980's wound down. The correlation between US aid and human rights violations has long been noted by scholarship.”
― Noam Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects

“Among the many reasons for regarding the fabled American exceptionalism with some skepticism is that the doctrine appears to be close to a historical universal, including the worst monsters: Hitler, Stalin, the conquistadors; it is hard to find an exception. Aggression and terror are almost invariably portrayed as self-defense and dedication to inspiring visions.”
― Noam Chomsky, Hopes and Prospects

“Historical amnesia is a dangerous phenomenon not only because it undermines moral and intellectual integrity but also because it lays the groundwork for crimes that still lie ahead.”
― Noam Chomsky, Who Rules the World?

“The twentieth century saw man's view of the universe transformed: we realized the insignificance of our planet in the vastness of the universe, and we discovered that time and space we curved and inseparable , that the universe was expanding, and that it had a beginning in time.”
― Stephen Hawking, A Briefer History of Time

“There is a good chance that the study of the early universe and the requirements of mathematical consistency will lead us to a complete unified theory within the lifetime of some of us who are around today, always presuming we don't blow ourselves up first!”
― Stephen Hawking, A Briefer History of Time

“A partir de 1990 el neoliberalismo ha dominado la vida económica de Colombia, y en consecuencia la política, bajo todos los sucesivos gobiernos. En compañía de otras cinco fuerzas catastróficas que también podrían considerarse naturales y abstractas, como los jinetes del Apocalipsis: el narcotráfico, el paramilitarismo, la insurgencia, el clientelismo y la corrupción.”
― Antonio Caballero, Historia de Colombia y sus oligarquías

“In the end, the taxes that are evaded have to be compensated for by higher taxes on the law-abiding, often middle class households, in the United States, Europe and developing countries. Nothing in the logic of free exchange justifies this theft.”
― Gabriel Zucman, The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens

“Capitalist or communist, it all boils down to a pointless distinction between two types of poor and to a major misconception that we almost managed to dispel some forty years ago: the fallacy that a life without poverty is a privilege you have to work for, rather than a right we all deserve.”
― Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World

“Today, the richest 8% earn half of all the world's income and the richest 1% own more than half of all wealth. The poorest billion people account for just 1% of all consumption. The richest billion, 72%.”
― Rutger Bregman, Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World

“Los derechos humanos deberían ser la base de la comunidad internacional. Fijan las normas mínimas en virtud de las cuales hombres procedentes de horizontes diferentes pueden encontrarse, reconocerse y hablarse.”
― Jean Ziegler, El odio a Occidente: La memoria herida de los pueblos del Sur

“Muy pocas veces, en la Historia, los occidentales han dado tales muestras de ceguera, de indiferencia y de cinismo como en la actualidad. Su ignorancia de las realidades es impresionante. Y es así como se alimenta el odio.”
― Jean Ziegler, El odio a Occidente: La memoria herida de los pueblos del Sur

“In essence, we behave as economic actors according to the vision of the world of those who device the accounting conventions. The marginalist theory of value underlying contemporary national accounting systems leads to an indiscriminate attribution of productivity to anyone grabbing a large income and downplays the productivity of the less fortunate. In so doing, it justifies excessive inequalities of income and wealth and turns value extraction into value creation.”
― Mariana Mazzucato, The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy