The leaders of the empire, the imperial mafia-George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et al ... are as fanatic and as fundamentalist as Osama bin Laden. — William Blum

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Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship. — William Blum

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The "trickle-down" theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals. — William Blum

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Do you remember the classic example of chutzpah? It's the young man who kills his parents and then asks the judge for mercy on the grounds that he's an orphan. The Bush administration's updated version of that was starting a wholly illegal, immoral, and devastating war and then dismissing all kinds of criticism of its action on the grounds that 'we're at war. — William Blum

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A terrorist is someone who has a bomb, but doesn't have an air force. — William Blum

You see, I have been at revaluing myself in the last few days. I may have some value to historians because I have destroyed a few things. The builder of your Cathedral is forgotten even now, but I, who burned it, may be remembered for a hundred years or so. And that may mean something or other about mankind. — John Steinbeck

What our leaders and pundits never let slip is that the terrorists - whatever else they might be - might also be rational human beings; which is to say that in their own minds they have a rational justification for their actions. — William Blum

Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II — William Blum

America's state religion, is patriotism, a phenomenon which has convinced many of the citizenry that 'treason' is morally worse than murder or rape. — William Blum

Change comes from a degree of discomfort that allows for and spurs thought and action. — William Blum

The questions they ask usually in the polls is: do you support the President's attempt to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein? ... If you ask a question like: do you support the dropping of powerful explosives upon the heads of totally innocent men, women and children, demolishing their homes and their schools and their hospitals, are you in favour of that? That would change the answers, I think, quite a bit. — William Blum

From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair. — William Blum

The Soviet Union and something called communism per se had not been the object of Washington's global attacks. There had never been an International Communist Conspiracy. The enemy was, and remains, any government or movement, or even individual, that stands in the way of the expansion of the American Empire; by whatever name the US gives to the enemy - communist, rogue state, drug trafficker, terrorist. — William Blum

Don't run," he breathes, his eyes searching mine. I can barely stand the way he looks when he says it. I know I've hurt him, but I don't want to run this time. I don't care about the bet, I don't care about who he was talking to on the phone. All I know right now is that the one thing I do care about is him. "Don't let me, — Kandi Steiner

Notice also how often your attention is in the past or future. Don't judge or analyze what you observe. Watch the thought, feel the emotion, observe the reaction. Don't make a personal problem out of them. You will then feel something more powerful than any of those things that you observe: the still, observing presence itself behind the content of your mind, the silent watcher. — Eckhart Tolle

I love a lot of reggae, but I've never had the opportunity to play with any reggae guys. — Billy Sheehan

No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine. — William Blum

I was in my house, alone in the living room, anxious about you, watching the flashes of lightning. And a flash of lightning lit up this truth for me, right in front of my eye. That night i lost you, I lost something inside me. Or perhaps several things. Something central to my existence, the very support for who I am as a person — Haruki Murakami

If love is blind, patriotism has lost all five senses. — William Blum

A clean
break is easiest for all involved.
Maybe. But anyone who's ever broken a bone
knows that even a clean break hurts like hell. — Rachel Vincent

Why don't church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics? — William Blum

There are two motives for writing a book: one, that you may save what you know, the other, that you may share what you know with the public. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

Most terrorists are people deeply concerned by what they see as social, political, or religious injustice and hypocrisy, and the immediate grounds for their terrorism is often retaliation for an action of the United States. — William Blum

The de facto censorship which leaves so many Americans functionally illiterate about the history of US foreign affairs may be all the more effective because it is not official, heavy-handed or conspiratorial, but woven artlessly into the fabric of education and media. No conspiracy is needed. — William Blum

Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to. — William Blum

Terror is the poor man's war, war is the rich man's terror. Ultimately, all wars will end either in annihilation or at the negotiating table. (#) A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but can't afford an air force. — William Blum