Major Quotes - page 80
The origin myth's omissions are grotesque. It ignores three major pillars of our nationhood: genocide, enslavement and imperialist expansion. The massive extermination of indigenous peoples provided our land base; the enslavement of African labor made our economic growth possible; and the seizure of half of Mexico by war (or threat of renewed war) extended this nation's boundaries north to the Pacific and south to the Rio Grande. Such are the foundation stones of the United States, within an economic system that made this country the first in world history to be born capitalist.
Elizabeth Martinez
The most striking change during the past 20 years can be seen in attitudes toward homophobia. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, an almost total silence hung over gay and lesbian advocacy. No openly gay person could be a movement leader. Today homophobia persists; most progressive, straight Chicanos as well as Chicanas still fail to see gay and lesbian rights as another struggle of other oppressed people. Too many still fail to see homophobia as a sometimes murderous force of discrimination. But the situation has improved, especially in some major cities, in academia and among youth.
Elizabeth Martinez
There's tons of books out there about writers who suffer insecurities, who suffer all kinds of other ailments. To live in your head for a long time is a difficult thing, especially in terms of novelists, where you have this whole blueprint of this world in your head. I feel like, because I'm so much in my head, I forget that I have a real life, you know? That's a major challenge...
Helena Maria Viramontes
Today, the danger of a world war and the threats to China come mainly from the warmongers in the United States. They have occupied our Taiwan and the Taiwan Straits and are contemplating an atomic war. We have two principles: first, we don't want war; second, we will strike back resolutely if anyone invades us. This is what we teach the members of the Communist Party and the whole nation. The Chinese people are not to be cowed by U.S. atomic blackmail. Our country has a population of 600 million and an area of 9,600,000 square kilometres. The United States cannot annihilate the Chinese nation with its small stack of atom bombs. Even if the U.S. atom bombs were so powerful that, when dropped on China, they would make a hole right through the earth, or even blow it up, that would hardly mean anything to the universe as a whole, though it might be a major event for the solar system.
Mao Zedong
A major goal of investigating how cooperative norms in societal settings have been established is a better understanding of how to promote cooperative norms in international settings. This is not as utopian as it might seem because international norms against slavery and colonialism are already strong, while international norms are partly effective against racial discrimination, chemical warfare, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Because norms sometimes become established surprisingly quickly, there may be some useful cooperative norms that could be hurried along with relatively modest interventions.
Robert Axelrod
The first great frontal assault on the Enlightenment was launched by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Rousseau has a well-deserved reputation as the bad boy of eighteenth century French philosophy. In the context of Enlightenment intellectual culture, Rousseau's was a major dissenting voice. He was an admirer of all things Spartan-the Sparta of militaristic and feudal communalism-and a despiser of all things Athenian-the classical Athens of commerce, cosmopolitanism, and the high arts. Civilization is thoroughly corrupting, Rousseau argued -- not only the oppressive feudal system of eighteenth-century France with its decadent and parasitical aristocracy, but also its Enlightenment alternative with its exaltation of reason, property, the arts and sciences. Name a dominant feature of the Enlightenment, and Rousseau was against it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Dear Sirs: I feel compelled to write you concerning your article, "The World's Toughest Batting Orders-As Selected by Ten Star Major League Pitchers," which appeared in the March 31 Family Weekly. I think it is a shame that such unproven players such as Dave Concepcion are placed in a lineup of "toughest outs." I agree that Hank Aaron, Billy Williams, Rod Carew and Willie Stargell are among the greatest hitters the game has ever known, but it certainly did not take your panel long to forget Roberto Clemente.
Roberto Clemente
Official Pittsburgh Pirate releases reveal that their brash hitting star Roberto Walker Clemente [sic] was given the nickname "Momen" by a cousin for no particular reason. There isn't even a definition listed. However, if early returns are any indication the name is sure to have a meaning shortly. Roberto is likely to knock in "mo men" this season than any other major league batter.
Roberto Clemente
This boy may not possess the color of Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays, but he has enough natural ability to be spoken of along with any of those fellows. I suppose I have a peculiar attachment to Robert [sic]. That's because we got him for a "steal," you might say. I was with the Dodgers when we acquired Clemente after scouting him in Puerto Rico. So I was thoroughly acquainted with the boy when the major league draft came up in the winter of 1954, after I had come to Pittsburgh from Brooklyn. The Dodgers were apparently bent on "hiding" Robert when they transferred him to the Pacific Coast League. But since I knew what he could do, and that he was somewhere in their farm system, I withheld the Pirates' draft selection until I found the boy. We got him for the relatively small draft price-perhaps the biggest steal in baseball.
Roberto Clemente
The US stock market, the Dow Jones Index, is at an all-time high. Historically, the major collapses of the US stock market (or any stock market, for that matter) occur when it is at its highest-ever point. The stock markets of the US and Britain are poised, now, for a major collapse, which will become world-wide, and will bring to an end this divisive economic system based on market forces and their corollary, commercialization.
Benjamin Creme
(Annie) Besant is correct. To be exact, my Master says it is 4,700 years. The Buddhist figure of 200,000 years refers back to the major decline of spirituality in late Atlantean times which led to the destruction of the Atlantean land-mass and civilization nearly 100,000 years ago. This can be seen as the beginning of a ‘dark age'. [Text is Creme's reply to Q: Besant says that Kali Yuga was the last 5000 years. Buddhism had always said 200,000 years. Which is correct?].
Benjamin Creme
I have long contended that Islam is unique among the major world religions in having a developed doctrine, theology, and legal system mandating warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. There is no orthodox sect or school of Islam that teaches that Muslims must coexist peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis. I use the term "radical Islam” merely to distinguish those Muslims who are actively working to advance this subjugation from the many millions who are not, as well as to emphasize that the stealth jihad program is truly radical: it aims at nothing less than the transformation of American society and the imposition of Islamic law here, subjugating women and non-Muslims to the status of legal inferiors.
Robert Spencer
In June (2008), a large mob of approximately 5,000 Muslim fundamentalists, "comprised mostly of Bangladeshi infiltrators", attacked a major religious gathering of Hindus at one of their holiest sites at one of the pilgrimage points of Gangasagar in West Bengal. They outnumbered the pilgrims by 25 to one, and focused assaults on women and children... the West Bengal police... did not charge any of them. But in a move reminiscent of Nazi Germany, which would charge the Jewish community when they were attacked, the West Bengal government arrested 15 of the religious pilgrims "under several sections of the Indian Penal Code for inciting communal disharmony, while the perpetrators roam Scott free." (152-3, citing Survey of Hindu Human Rights West Bengal)
Richard Benkin
We have come with our eyes shut, following Major Wynkoop's handful of men, like coming through the fire. All we ask is that we have peace with the whites. We want to hold you by the hand. You are our father. We have been traveling through a cloud. The sky has been dark ever since the war began. These braves who are with me are willing to do what I say. We want to take good tidings home to our people, that they may sleep in peace. I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies. I have not come here with a little wolf bark, but have come to talk plain with you.
Black Kettle
Some people, like me, believe retirement should be partly socialized. Others, such as Tucker Carlson, believe in a purely private system: If you don't save for your own retirement, your neighbor has no obligation to bail you out. Both arguments have roots in the American spirit: We are at once wonderfully communitarian and intensely individualistic. I felt then – and now – that rather than pretend there is not a major philosophical difference, or that there is one objectively perfect solution, we should debate our policy options vigorously.
Tucker Carlson
We like to do something good. And you know, we like to be praised for it. Now if you don't believe that, you just go on living life, and you will discover very soon that you like to be praised. Everybody likes it, as a matter of fact. And somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised or when our name is in print is something of the vitamin A to our ego. Nobody is unhappy when they are praised, even if they know they don't deserve it and even if they don't believe it. The only unhappy people about praise is when that praise is going too much toward somebody else. But everybody likes to be praised because of this real drum major instinct.
Martin Luther King Jr.
I think now that in England under the Tudors (1955), attempting to restore him [Thomas Cromwell] to view and show him in a truer light, I made some rather extravagant claims for him, though I stand by the essence of my opinions there. I still think that Cromwell was the most remarkable English statesman of the sixteenth century and one of the most remarkable in the country's history. I still think that he instigated and in part accomplished a major and enduring transformation in virtually every aspect of the nation's public life. And I still think that he was largely responsible for the fact that the medieval heritage of common law and representative institutions remained at the heart of England's modern government, until very recent times.
Geoffrey Elton
Senator Vanderberg 20 years ago expressed his fear that the American chief executive would become the number one warlord of the earth, his phrase. That has since occurred. The clearest example is the decision to escalate in Vietnam in February 1965, in cynical disregard of the expressed will of the electorate. This incident reveals, I think, with perfect clarity the role of the public in decisions about peace and war, the role of the public in decisions about the main lines about public policy in general. And it also suggests the irrelevance of electoral politics to major decisions of national policy.
Noam Chomsky
Each time, the taxpayer is called on to bail out those who created the crisis, increasingly the major financial institutions. In a capitalist economy, you wouldn't do that. In a capitalist system, that would wipe out the investors who made risky investments. But the rich and powerful, they don't want a capitalist system. They want to be able to run to the "nanny state” as soon as they're in trouble, and get bailed out by the taxpayer. They're given a government insurance policy, which means that no matter how often you risk everything, if you get in trouble, the public will bail you out because you're too big to fail - and it's just repeating over and over again.
Noam Chomsky
