We are [...] becoming to the animal kingdom exactly what
the ruling machines are to the factory-farmed humans in
*The Matrix*. - Steve Talbott, NetFuture
%
Our response to being bored and rich is not to discard
our possessions and live more simply, but to buy more stuff
to reduce the space in which we might contemplate our shame.
 - Stuart Jeffries
%
The limitation of a technocratic society is always a limitation
of imagination. - Steve Talbott, NetFuture
%
There are, in the end, no worthwhile "things" in the world;
there are only worthwhile doings. - Steve Talbott, NetFuture
%
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having
a peeing section in a swimming pool. - Edward Burr
%
Fashion is mistaken for good design; moral fashion is mistaken for good.
Dressing oddly gets you laughed at. Violating moral fashions can get you
fired, ostracized, imprisoned, or even killed. - Paul Graham
%
Unchecked police and military power undermine personal security,
and increase the risk of terrorism attacks. Unchecked terrorism only
increases the risk of terrorism attacks. Statistically, if both are
possible, I am more at risk from the first, and am likely to lose more.
 - Daniel Staal, August 2004
%
Like, we have all we need to make the world a better place for
everyone, and yet here we are, screwing up, day after day. Too slow.
Let's pick up the pace here, shall we? - Kirby Urner, December 2004
%
...this particular abuse of the rules of procedure will make a great
textbook example for the lack of democracy in the EU. While the
Luxembourg Presidency quoted some vague "institutional reasons" for
their position, their reasoning actually serves to discredit the
institution of the Council, and the whole EU project with it.
 - Karl-Friedrich Lenz, http://k.lenz.name/wordpress/index.php?p=26
%
I feel like we are losing our creativity and imagination. Give a 3 year
old a box of crayons and you have no idea what he will come up with.
Give a 10 year old a Playstation2 and about the best that might happen
is he'll find a way to cheat.
 - Lee Harr, April 2005
%
The computer, especially connected to the Internet, is the paradigm power
tool of our age. The sin would be to bring up a generation of passive
consumers who complain and whine because "it won't do what I want."
The mark of a successful civilization is it gives its people power over
its most powerful tools, and not vice versa. - Kirby Urner, April 2005
%
When I was growing up, my parents used to say to me, "Tom, finish your
dinner - people in China are starving." But after sailing to the edges
of the flat world for a year, I am now telling my own daughters, "Girls,
finish your homework - people in China and India are starving for your
jobs." - Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, April 2005
%
What's exciting to me about computers is it's an area where humans,
notorious for not getting along, especially politically and religiously,
have co-created some awesomely complicated yet working technology. It's
a metaphor for civilization itself. - Kirby Urner, May 2005
%
One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news,
don't worry about it. By definition, "news" means that it hardly ever
happens. If a risk is in the news, then it's probably not worth
worrying about. When something is no longer reported - automobile
deaths, domestic violence - when it's so common that it's not news,
then you should start worrying. - Bruce Schneier, May 2005
%
A lot of the folks here are extraordinarily intelligent and capable of
extreme levels of dedicated effort. ... If one of them set his mind on
evil, he could take over the world. (On the other hand, he couldn't be
as evil as the people who *are* taking over the world.)
 - Andy Oram about the Ottawa Linux Symposium 2005
%
When people with lots of weapons and training in violence feel cornered,
it tends to not be a pretty picture. - Kirby Urner, August 2005
%
It's ironic because it's lawyers and accountants who run this stuff.
They can't keep it together. The music industry is crumbling.
A lot of people notice how shitty and disposable music is
and it's infesting the whole world. - Shannon McNally, 2005
%
How wonderful the world would be if his behaviour and attitude was the
default among rich people - using his money with a vision to improve the
world, instead of getting 8 sportcars and a larger penis.
 - barkholt on Slashdot, October 2005, referring to Mark Shuttleworth
%
They will have to legislate away BitTorrent if they want it gone.
If that successully happens, we have a lot more to worry about than
how to get free porn. - digitalunity on Slashdot, November 2005
%
Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug
dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers. Seems like you can scare
the public into allowing the government to do anything with those four.
 - Bruce Schneier, January 2006
%
I've already written about the security risks of what I call "wholesale
surveillance." [...] The problems and insecurities that come from living
in a surveillance society more than outweigh any crimefighting (and
terrorist-fighting) advantages. - Bruce Schneier, January 2006
%
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to
govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would
be necessary. - James Madison
%
You asked about my "path to world domination". Well, I guess I want
the whole world to be like the Oberlin CS Lab was: a sharing community
where people assume that improving the system is within anyone's reach.
 - Karl Fogel, November 2005
%
How do we "make poverty history"? We make naivety history.
We make ignorance of the forces manipulating the world history.
We make ignorance of their agenda history. Without that,
nothing can change. - David Icke, November 2005
%
This is why I don't own a TiVo or satellite TV; they'd make
the time-munching TV monster stronger, and as an added insult
we'd get to pay for it. - Andrew Kuchling, November 2005
%
Any country or state that allows capital punishment is neither mature
or civilised. It is barbaric. - David Icke, December 2005
%
How ironic. Doctors are often not used [in capital punishment] because
the very act of killing breaches their professional oath, but the State
can still do it without breaking any code whatsoever, except the code of
human decency. But then those involved have long lost contact with that.
 - David Icke, December 2005
%
We are not seats or eyeballs or end users or consumers. We are human beings
- and our reach exceeds your grasp: deal with it. - Chris Locke, Cluetrain
%
The first markets were markets. Not bulls, bears, or invisible hands.
Not battlefields, targets, or arenas. Not demographics, eyeballs,
or seats. Most of all, not consumers. - Cluetrain
%
Christmas is an ancient Pagan/Babylonian mid-winter festival, which the
Christian religion tagged onto. The beliefs surrounding this period may
be bollocks, but in a free society we must have the freedom to follow
and celebrate bollocks or we cannot claim to be free, except to agree,
and that's no freedom at all. - David Icke, December 2005
%
Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are
the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how
we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are
fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence.
 - Daniel Gilbert, December 2005
%
It is not only that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It is also that power attracts the corruptible. - David Icke, January 2006
%
Our society definitely needs a serious conversation about the fundamental
freedoms we are sacrificing in a misguided attempt to keep us safe from
terrorism. It feels both surreal and sickening to have to defend our
fundamental freedoms against those who want to stop people from sharing
music. How is it possible that we can contemplate so much damage to our
society simply to protect the business model of a handful of companies?
 - Bruce Schneier, December 2005
%
The police and the military have fundamentally different missions.
The police protect citizens. The military attacks the enemy. When
you start giving police powers to the military, citizens start
looking like the enemy. - Bruce Schneier, December 2005
%
Most people are doomed in childhood by accepting the axiom that work equals
pain. Those who escape this are nearly all lured onto the rocks by prestige
or money. How many even discover something they love to work on? A few
hundred thousand, perhaps, out of billions. - Paul Graham, January 2006
%
As for the music factories--a.k.a. the major record companies--what they
want is power. They will never accept P2P sharing as long as it remains
a way to escape from their power. For their abuses against the people,
they deserve to be abolished, and that should be everyone's goal.
 - Richard Stallman, February 2006
%
Users know the business better than you do, whoever you are.
If you are willing to learn, you can change the world.
 - Dratz, February 2006
%
People Should Not Be Afraid Of Their Governments.
Governments Should Be Afraid Of Their People.
 - "V for Vendetta" movie, 2006
%
But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own
strength, would have no reason to conspire. They needed only to rise up
and shake themselves, like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose, they
could blow the party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely, sooner or later,
it must occur to them to do it. And yet... - George Orwell, "1984"
%
[Cannabis] should be totally free to grow and use, but the DEA-mob-cabal
has made it into a black market item, and extracts huge untaxed profits
from it. That money buys more lobbyists and payoffs, to keep the game
going. Freedom and the average citizen suffer. - zentara, March 2006
%
The meteor that ended the Mass Marketing period and the Industrial Era
was the Internet. But instead of setting the old world on fire and
killing off species, the Net gave every living thing a better world
in which to do business and make culture. - Doc Searls, March 2006
%
The Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, said that "Fascism should more
properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and
corporate power". Under that definition, most of the world has been
under fascism for centuries. - David Icke, March 2006
%
The war in Iraq is bad enough. But the war on drugs has lasted longer
and cost more money and more American lives. - David Boaz, April 2006
%
Investors are often urged to be "contrarian". [...] It's pretty good
advice for leadership too. Whatever seems to be the current fashion
or orthodoxy, be ready to take a serious look at doing pretty much
the opposite. - Carmine Coyote, April 2006
%
To claim that a massive conspiracy couldn't work is just ludicrous. It's
all about getting people to play along, while compartmentalizing knowledge.
It's possible nobody really knows all the big secrets out there. So then
is it really even a conspiracy? Sounds more like it's just our fucked up
world, where everyone thinks he knows everything. - Tim O'Regan, May 2006
%
When the environmentalists speak of conservation, frugality, and
conscientious consumption, they are right. They believe we have a duty
to give more back to the world than we take; you aren't clever when
you trick the system and take more than you give: you are repugnant.
 - Ian Bicking, May 2006
%
Business, left to itself, would rape the earth we live on, fill food
with poisons, theatres with stupidity, streets with gas-guzzlers,
and legislatures with puppets. All as an organic consequence of
the competitive marketplace. - Tim Bray, January 2005
%
Looking good on paper is the first resort of those who want to appear to
acknowledge some public concern without making any significant change.
That's usually politicians, command-and-control business leaders and PR
flacks. Real leaders know that looking good on paper means nothing unless
it's the result of determined actions, not a replacement for them.
 - Carmine Coyote, May 2006
%
Samuel Johnson famously said, "Patriotism is the last refuge of a
scoundrel." "That's classified, it's a matter of National Security"
is the first and permanent refuge of incompetence.
 - Larry Beinhart, April 2006
%
Law enforcement so often attracts the wrong people because of the power
that goes with it. If you are imbalanced enough to seek power over others
then law enforcement must look very attractive. You don't have to be int-
elligent, nor honest, nor fair. You just need to wear the right clothes.
 - David Icke, May 2006
%
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy."
The real choice is liberty versus control. [...] Liberty requires security
without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance
is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion
privacy even when we have nothing to hide. - Bruce Schneier, June 2006
%
Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that
for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be
observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create
a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt.
-- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
%
Cannavaro Cannavaro Cannavaro, what else is there to say? [...] He stopped
Klose and he stopped Ballack and he stopped Podolski and he stopped Odonkor
and he stopped Schneider and he stopped Schweinsteiger, most of them more
than once. [...] Cannavaro was the knife in Germany’s heart.
 - Tim Bray, July 2006
%
Dogs are wild animals and shouldn't be kept as a pet. It's as simple as
that. A fish is a safe pet. A dog isn't. How many children get injured -
often in the face - by dogs each year? It's just not worth it. - Mattijs
%
Legally or otherwise, domestically or from overseas, flawless copies can
and will be obtained. And the modern European pirates who retrieve and
share our cultural gold - gold that the owners had forsaken - are not
scoundrels who defy the law but heroes who advance its ultimate aim.
 - Peter Guttman, July 2006
%
Every man who has committed a rape, every man who has thought of committing
a rape, every man who commits sexual abuse, every man who sexually harass-
es, every man who tells stupid woman bashing jokes, every man who laughs
at those damn jokes, every man who breathes should have to go through a
rape kit exam, and have a nurse slam a couple of fingers up his ass with
no foreplay. THEN, they should have to sit and try to console their mother,
their sister, their wife, their DAUGHTER, while going through a rape kit
exam. - Lisa, July 2006
%
The learned helplessness that has us to believe we're incapable of knowing
how to treat our bodies properly without the advice of some 'professional'
or 'expert' who's being pumped with gifts, biased 'research' and free
samples by Big Pharma, sickens me. - Dave Pollard, May 2006
%
Please remember this, anyone who is thinking of joining the military:
They don't give a shit about you. They couldn't care less. You are a
statistic, just body fodder in a uniform. When you're dead or maimed
for life they'll just get some other poor sod to replace you.
A cross becomes a tick and off we go again. - David Icke, October 2006
%
We need to hug authority into surrender. [...] The edifice of power is
only the illusion of power once we realise that the power lies with us.
 - David Icke, November 2006
%
We need to refuse to vote on electronic voting machines without a voter-
verifiable paper ballot, and to continue to pressure our legislatures to
implement voting technology that works. - Bruce Schneier, November 2006
%
Without legal privacy protections, the world becomes one giant airport
security area, where the slightest joke - or comment made years before -
lands you in hot water. The world becomes one giant market-research study,
where we are all life-long subjects. The world becomes a police state,
where we all are assumed to be [...] terrorists in the eyes of the
government. - Bruce Schneier, November 2006
%
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room.
 - Dave Pollard, April 2006
%
There are encouraging signs that more and more of us are choosing to wean
ourselves off our addiction to consumption, debt, and being too busy
and too tired for our own good. Out at the Edge, it's getting more
comfortable, more fun, and even a bit more crowded all the time.
 - Dave Pollard, September 2006
%
A Salem (USA), nel 1692, diverse donne furono impiccate perché alcuni
bambini (che vennero creduti) dissero di averle viste volare.
In Italia, trecentoquindici anni dopo, siamo davvero ancora convinti
che le maestre possano volare?
 - http://www.falsiabusi.it/archivio/notizie/dossier_scuole_materne.html
%
Le pubblicità sono al 45% di telefonini e al 45% di macchine di
grossa cilindrata. Il rimanente 10% di finanziarie. Uno si indebita.
Compra macchina e cellulare. E si schianta mentre parla al cellulare
a 200 all'ora. Le rate rimangono agli eredi.
 - Beppe Grillo, Febbraio 2007
%
Microsoft went berserk; tried unsuccessfully to get me fired as co-editor,
and then launched a vicious, deeply personal extended attack in which
they tried to destroy my career and took lethal action against a small
struggling company because my wife worked there. It was a sideshow of
a sideshow of the great campaign to bury Netscape and I'm sure the
executives have forgotten; but I haven’t. - Tim Bray, January 2007
%
Anyone who says their ambition is "to be famous" is a fragile ego desperate
for external recognition and for these people the Big Brother show can be a
devastating experience, not least with the constant fear of public "reject-
ion". Being voted out means "they don't love me" when the real problem is
that the celebs don't love themselves. - David Icke, January 2007
%
L'informazione italiana è di regime, dei partiti. Tra Mediaset e Rai non
c'è differenza. E tra i vari giornali sovvenzionati dallo Stato anche.
Liberalizziamo le frequenze televisive e eliminiamo l'editoria assistita.
Ci tassano per raccontarci balle. RESET! - Beppe Grillo, Febbraio 2007
%
I accuse you, Mr. Bush, [...] of fomenting fear among your own people,
of creating the very terror you claim to have fought.
 - Keith Olbermann, July 2007
%
Considero la televisione il più potente strumento (dopo le armi) di
repressione di massa. Se la nostra tv smetterà di essere un luogo
autoreferenziale della politica (di governo e non), un'immensa rivendita
di merci varie, una fabbrica di brutti modelli e falsi bisogni, allora
sarò ben felice di tornare a frequentarla. - Teresa De Sio, Marzo 2006
%
Is it really irresponsible to refuse to work and consume and live in debt
in a culture that is destroying our world? [...] If our lives are movies
we script ourselves, who is producing and directing them?
 - Dave Pollard, April 2007
%
Courage, self-confidence, and trust in each other. If we had these things
we could live without money, and without wage slavery. Is it any wonder
that the politicians, big businesses, the elites of the rich and powerful,
work so hard to make us fearful, full of self-doubt, distrustful, and
"just like everybody else"? - Dave Pollack, August 2005
%
Most of our learned helplessness is illusory, and plays right into the
hands of politicians, preachers, fearmongers, marketers and corporatists.
 - Dave Pollard, May 2007
%
Come in Italia i media si gonfiano di "bambini di satana", accuse assurde
a scuole ed insegnanti su chissà che sevizie, e simili, così pure in USA;
e qui come lì si impara a fare lo sconto su questi continui allarmismi.
 - Alex Martelli, Maggio 2007
%
La porcata, si chiami Val di Susa, indulto o bavaglio alle intercettazioni,
si santifica con il contatto della gente. Sempre a debita distanza si
intende. Il politico che ha il coraggio delle sue castronate è ammirabile,
copertinabile, molto leccabile. - Beppe Grillo, Giugno 2007
%
I grew up with the colonialist propaganda, the "occupier's narrative",
and it took me half my life to realize it was all a lie. [...] If I
were among those directly afflicted by the genocide, paternalism,
exploitation, theft and abuse committed every day by colonial invaders,
in almost every nation on the planet, I would be consumed by rage. [...]
We should be ashamed of ourselves. - Dave Pollard, July 2007
%
We already treat different drugs differently; alcohol is treated dif-
ferently from tobacco is treated differently from heroin. [...] As for
cannabis, just give up. [...] Legalize it, regulate it, collect the
tax dollars, and free up the cops to go after the real problem drugs.
 - Tim Bray, April 2003
%
Those who don't move don't feel their chains.
 - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
%
Somewhere in the "primitive" world, there must be a tribe that encourages
the civilized custom of teenagers, of both sexes, being initiated by an
older partner, as a matter of course, for the psychological health of the
whole community. Why not? - Joe Jackson, A Cure for Gravity, 1999
%
A person with a solid inner world won't obsess over buying things or
forsake the objects she owns. Instead she can view it as a person playing
a game would look at the tokens on the board. Seeing past the ownership
illusion, she can put all her effort into experiencing the game.
 - Scott H. Young, September 2007
%
Non è vero che la classe politica è tutta uguale. Ma i pochi galantuomini
che ne fanno parte la legittimano. Non si può votare il meno peggio.
Non si deve perdere la speranza di un meglio. Chi vota il meno peggio
legittima il peggio. - Beppe Grillo, Febbraio 2008
%
Da circa quindici anni ad oggi i leader che si sono susseguiti a sinistra
non hanno fatto altro che [...] aiutare Silvio con decreti ad personam,
indebolire la cognizione di una questione morale tra gli elettori,
gettare il confronto politico sulla perniciosa affermazione "rivolete
Berlusconi?". - Duccio, citato da Piero Ricca, ottobre 2007
%
La presenza di una persona come Franco Frattini in una posizione di pote-
re, come quella di Commissario Europeo per la Sicurezza, rappresenta una
evidente minaccia per la Democrazia, per la Libertà e per la Sicurezza
Personale dei cittadini europei. - Alessandro Bottoni, November 2007
%
Che differenza c'è tra la democrazia cinese e la nostra? Una sola,
da loro la pena di morte è esplicita, ti sparano. Da noi ti isolano,
ti diffamano, ti trasferiscono. Solo se è necessario ti ammazzano.
E` una dittatura buona. L’omicidio è solo l'ultima risorsa.
 - Beppe Grillo, Dicembre 2007
%
Il Governo dovrebbe indire un Consiglio dei Ministri straordinario per
misure urgenti sulla sicurezza sul lavoro, ma il Governo non ha neppure
il coraggio di ricevere il Dalai Lama. [...] Un Governo di centro
sinistra, con due sindacalisti alla presidenza di Camera e Senato
e un sindacalista ministro del Lavoro, fa rimpiangere Berlusconi.
 - Beppe Grillo, Dicembre 2007
%
Se io parlo del sostegno immondo di Ferrara alla guerra criminale di
Bush, Blair e Berlusconi in Iraq, e voi vi scandalizzate dei toni
satirici invece che di Abu Grahib o del napalm a Falluja, la vostra
scala di valori è corrotta. - Daniele Luttazzi, Dicembre 2007
%
The Chinese built the Great Wall early in our civilization not to
keep the Mongol hordes out, but to keep the newly enslaved and
dubious peasants, the pawns of the new civilization, in. To keep
them from Just Walking Away. - Dave Pollard, December 2007
%
The reason to study history is to learn from it. I think you get
a lot more precise and comprehensive look at history through
simulations rather than through books. And, unfortunately, in
some cases a very disturbing look at history. - Clark Aldrich
%
My dream is that in 500 years (or less) humanity will look back at what
passes for psychology today in the same way that we now look back on the
dark ages, when they were drilling holes in people's heads to drain out
the crazy. Oh wait, we were still doing that in the twentieth century
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy). - Phillip J. Eby, February 2008
%
Vi chiedo scusa per la Camorra, per Bassolino, per Veltroni, per Ber-
lusconi, per la Iervolino, per Cirino Pomicino. Vi chiedo scusa per
Mussolini, per il fascismo, per due guerre mondiali, per le leggi
razziali, per le navi piene di emigranti. Scusa per aver ridotto una
delle più belle città del mondo a uno spot pubblicitario della monnezza.
 - Beppe Grillo a Napoli, Febbraio 2008
%
The next time you see a homeless person, or an addict, don't be fright-
ened, angry, or filled with pathos. You are looking in the mirror.
It is we who are homeless, and addicted. What will it take before
we break the habit, walk away from The Man, and find our way home?
 - Dave Pollard, December 2004
%
So far, the generations that will follow us, as our planet and our
civilization careen over a cliff, are none the wiser. They've bought
the propaganda we tell them, and tell ourselves. So far. What will we do,
though, when they learn what we've done? And what, as we desperately and
ludicrously tried to convince ourselves that we were on the road to
sustainability, we failed to do? - Dave Pollard, March 2008
%
All of the posturing by politicians about the exploited borrowers who
lost their homes -- liars -- and the need for new laws to be passed by
Congress to prevent unscrupulous mortgage brokers -- liars -- from ever
exploiting the poor again, and also preventing them from endangering the
solvency of the nation's financial institutions -- liars -- is nothing
but election-year politicking by the biggest liars of all: politicians.
 - Gary North, April 2008
%
The major contributors to Bush in the last two elections are now
Hillary's main contributors. So you can see whose pocket she's in.
[...] Obama's adviser is the brother of Rahm Emanuel, the head of the
Democratic National Committee who refused to back anti-war Democrats
in the last election [...]. I consider Obama as pro-war as Hillary.
 - Michael Hudson, January 2008
%
If one wants to create games where heroes save the world, they may not
want to work on serious games. But if they really want to be a hero and
save the world, this might be perfect. - Clark Aldrich, April 2008
%
In theory, every nation is supposed to act in its own self-interest. But
in today's world it seems that only the U.S. government is acting in this
way. It is understandable why the United States would love to pay paper
dollars and get foreign resources for nothing. It's not understandable
why foreign countries go along. - Michael Hudson, January 2008
%
"Where do people find the time?" That was [the TV producer] question.
And I just kind of snapped. And I said, "No one who works in TV gets
to ask that question. You know where the time comes from. It comes
from the cognitive surplus you've been masking for 50 years."
 - Clay Shirky, April 2008
%
The new totalitarianism is its own justification, and nobody in America
or Europe is going to kick up much sand so long as the Darfurs and
Haitis remain on the goddamned TV screen where they belong.
 - Joe Bageant, April 2008
%
TV is all about instilling a desire in you to buy something. Instead,
why not take stock of the good things you already have, and say
"thanks." Then say "no thanks" to the nonsense on TV and let the
falling ratings work the change. - John Schettler, January 2008
%
The history of our civilization has been largely one of pioneers
fleeing the ghastly tyranny of the hierarchical corporation/state,
slaughtering gatherer-hunter societies in the 'unincorporated'
lands they fled to, and then, as their numbers grew, replicating
the hierarchical corporation/state themselves, and then constantly
warring with other corporation/states. - Dave Pollard, May 2006
%
It's hard to comprehend what these people were put through, and just
the amount of deception that went on. It's terrifying, really, because
you think, well, if this happened here, where else is it happening,
where else we as people of this country, of this world I suppose,
we're being deceived. - Julia Roberts about Erin Brockovich, 2000
%
To leave out the fact that violent crime is a generally male mode
of expression, is not so much to ignore the Elephant in the room,
as to have incorporated its presence to such a degree that it is
now an intrinsic part of the decor. - Amanda Dean, June 2008
%
We all depend on the market for information to guide us. In order for
markets to work and economic actors to make sound decisions, the markets
must give us good information, including the full cost of the products
we buy. But the market is giving us bad information, and as a result we
are making bad decisions--so bad that they are threatening civilization.
 - Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0, 2007
%
The fishermen make two demands, which are taken up by politicians in
coastal regions all over the world: they must be allowed to destroy
their own livelihoods, and the rest of us should pay for it.
 - George Monbiot, July 2008
%
In a sobering study recently published in the Proceedings of the
[U.S.] National Academy of Science, a research team [...] found that
the richest countries, by their activities, had generated 42 percent
of environmental degradation across the world, while shouldering
only 3 percent of the resulting costs. - Mike Davies, July 2008
%
New Zealand was the first country in the world in which all the highest
offices were occupied by women, between March 2005 and August 2006: the
Sovereign Queen Elizabeth II of New Zealand, Governor-General Dame Silvia
Cartwright, Prime Minister Helen Clark, Speaker of the New Zealand House
of Representatives Margaret Wilson and Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias.
 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_New_Zealand, 2008
%
In my northern Mississippi town there is a lawn policeman. He drives
up and down the streets and looks at the condition of the yards.
Anyone whose yard offends him is given a notice, telling him that
he must cut his lawn. If he does not cut it within three days, the
city comes in and cuts it, and sends them a bill for $150. This is
a great incentive to cut your lawn. - Gary North, July 2008
%
Il 4 giugno 1963 il presidente John Fitzgerald Kennedy firmò l'ordine
esecutivo numero 11110, che permetteva al governo statunitense di emet-
tere moneta senza passare attraverso la Federal Reserve. [...] In tutto
Kennedy mise in circolazione banconote per 4,3 miliardi di dollari. Poco
dopo l'assassinio di Kennedy l'ordine esecutivo 11110 cadde in disuso.
 - http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signoraggio, 2008
%
There are men who [...] are able to make others pay for the privilege of
being allowed to exist and to work. [...] Their idleness is only rendered
possible by the industry of others; indeed their desire for comfortable
idleness is historically the source of the whole gospel of work. The last
thing they have ever wished is that others should follow their example.
 - Bertrand Russell, 1932
%
Aesthetics - the study and science of beauty and perception and our
response to them - seems to me the ultimate human intellectual arrogance.
It is as if the rulers of the world's most violent nation presumed to
declare themselves the arbiters of global peace (oops, bad example).
 - Dave Pollard, August 2008
%
Throughout the seventeenth century, English settlers [in North America]
defected to Indian tribes or, captured in war, refused to return.
But the Indians no more defected to white settlements than
Germans climb the Berlin Wall from the west. - Bob Black
%
I don't want to raise my future children in a culture where the
government takes their money and uses it to kill people, and will
put them in jail if they say "no!". - Vinaj Gupta, May 2008
%
We're foolish enough to believe the "experts" who tell us they know how
to run these systems that are so complex we can't even speak their lang-
uage, when these "experts" are nothing but paid hacks feeding at the same
trough, and are nearly as surprised as we are when these fragile and
exhausted systems and entities implode. - Dave Pollard, September 2008
%
Some sleight of hand the ruling elite have accomplished since 9/11,
namely, that while Americans were pondering the color of the govern-
ment's daily terrorist threat assessments, that government and its
corporate cronies was [...] bilking the American middle and working
classes. Hey, look over there-see Osama hiding under your bed?
And while you look, we'll steal you deaf, dumb, and blind!
 - Carolyn Baker, cited by John Schetter, September 2008
%
In Svezia sono andato in giro con un pakistano e a vivere da un
italiano. In Ungheria sono stato a casa di un portoghese. A Milano
sono andato a bere con un inglese. Ho trovato baresi ovunque.
 - Gabriele Renzi, October 2008
%
In the end each of us will face a choice about survival: do we
fight one another for what is left after the collapse, or do we
join one another in a great cooperative effort? The choice is ours.
 - John Schetter, October 2008
%
I can find a traditional society that uses herbs and shamanic techniques
for healing, destroy their culture and make them dependent on pharmaceut-
ical medicine which they must purchase, evict them from their land so
they cannot be subsistence farmers and must buy food, clear the land and
hire them on a banana plantation -- and I have made the world richer.
 - Charles Eisenstein, October 2008
%
In the developing world there still remain people who live substantially
in gift cultures, where natural and social wealth is not yet the subject
of property. Globalization is the process of stripping away these assets,
to feed the money machine's insatiable, existential need to grow.
 - Charles Eisenstein, October 2008
%
The conversion of life to money reduces everything to an economic
transaction, leaving us the loneliest people ever to inhabit the
planet. The propertization of the whole world means that everything
is either mine, or someone else's. No longer is anything in common. 
 - Charles Eisenstein, April 2008
%
The Insiders run the show. They tell Congress what to do, and Congress
does it. Do national elections matter? Not much. But it's a good show.
Do voters ever catch on? No. It's just too good a show. "The election
of the century." "The future of the country is at stake." The future
of Goldman Sachs, yes. The country? No. - Gary North, November 2008
%
For a marriage to involve precisely two people is as closed-minded
as marriages [only] involving people of opposing sexes.
 - Sam Hughes, November 2008
%
When you trust the Federal government to pay you your Social
Security pension, your Medicare benefits, and even do this with
a cost-of-living escalator to keep you ahead of the rate of inflation,
you are so far gone mentally that there is really nothing that can be
done for you. You are in Lala land. You are, in short, the typical
American voter. You will be destroyed. - Gary North, November 2008
%
A wise anarchist once said: "If voting could actually change
the system, then it would be illegal." - iLL WiLL, December 2008
%
Ironically, our form of economy is fully out of synch with our reality.
It assumes we have infinite physical resources and limited ideas; the
truth is we have a finite world and unlimited ideas. Our new economy
needs to reconcile to these basic truths. - Nick Raaum, December 2008
%
A multi-billion dollar mind-molding "psycho-mercial"
warfare establishment has spent decades working to
degrade Middle Class producers into mere "consumers".
 - "different clue" on John Robb's Global Guerrillas, January 2009
%
The worst thing of all about that programme is it has really made me
want to get my hands on a patch of land. This is not a normal character
trait for an urban type like me and I find it deeply worrying.
 - RenewableCandy about "A Farm for the Future", BBC, February 2008
%
Using fresh water to carry our shite to places where it does damage
is madness. How many soil nutrients are carried to the sea via our
sewage system? All that goodness could be composted and put on nut
and fruit trees. - SunnyJim on PowerSwitch, February 2008
%
We joke about tribal societies that traded land for baubles, not real-
izing that most of us are tempted by baubles. I saw a tee-shirt: "He
who dies with the most toys, wins." Someone bought that tee-shirt.
 - Gary North, May 2009
%
It really is easy to get transfixed, like a rabbit staring into head-
lights, by stories of the fall of empires and the end of civilisation
as we know it, and forget that choice and power always lie within us.
We are never a victim unless we continue to believe we are.
 - Nick Smith, February 2009
%
Diamonds are not a wonderful gift. Diamonds are common, cheap pieces
of rock, artificially inflated in value and importance. And they are
purchased with the blood of hundreds and thousands of impoverished
African people. They have driven genocide and even now are creating
massive upheaval for one of the few existent aboriginal people left
in the world. No... thank you. - Terrapraeta, February 2007
%
So, hold your [gay/lesbian] partner's hand! Kiss him (or her)! We've got
to put our love in people's faces, not confine it to "the privacy of our
own bedrooms." That tradition of secrecy is precisely the problem. As
long as we remain out of sight, we remain foreign - and thus likely
to trigger disgust in the minds of those prone to hypervigilance.
 - Jesse Bering, Scientific American, June 2009
%
If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren't
pessimistic, you don't understand the data. But if you meet the people
who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and
you aren't optimistic, you haven't got a pulse. - Paul Hawken, 2009
%
You can print money to bail out a bank, but
you can't print life to bail out a planet.
 - Paul Hawken, 2009
%
We can either create assets for the future or take the assets of the
future. One is called restoration and the other exploitation. And
whenever we exploit the earth, we exploit people and cause untold
suffering. Working for the earth is not a way to get rich,
it is a way to be rich. - Paul Hawken, 2009
%
Insidiously, the television tells me I am no one. If I was Someone,
I'd be on telly. In this way, television dis-esteems its viewers, and
celebrity culture is both a cause and a consequence of the low self-
esteem that mars so many people's lives. - Jay Griffiths, July 2009
%
Behavior exists on a continuum. Rape doesn't inhabit its own little
corner of the world, where everything is suddenly all different now.
The behavior you accept today is the behavior that becomes rape tomorrow.
And you very well might accept it then, too. - Harriet Jacobs, June 2009
%
Whenever you hear the word "voucher" in the same sentence
as "government," put your hand upon your wallet and your
back against the wall. - Gary North, August 2009
%
Representatives of the [USA] government torture innocent citizens into
unconsciousness, on camera, in United States courtrooms with tasers.
They use them on prisoners and on motorists and on political protesters
and bicycle riders, on mentally ill and handicapped people and
on children. And it's happening with nary a peep of protest.
 - http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/08/11/tasers/
%
Women don't get raped because of things they do or do not do. [...] Women
get raped because rapists decide to rape them, but rapists choose /which/
women to rape because there are some women you believe deserve to get
raped, and /a rapist was listening carefully when you said that/.
 - Harriet Jacobs, August 2009
%
The minority of us who happened to have been born in a few powerful
countries squandered half a billion years of stored photosynthesis
to give ourselves a brief period of spectacular economic abundance,
and by doing so, foreclosed the chance that anybody else would enjoy
that same abundance in the future. - John Michael Greer, August 2009
%
Whether we speak of clear cutting a forest, genocide, or a middle class
suburbanite spraying poison on his lawn, we choose to be blind deaf and
dumb to the fact that as a culture we kill everything that is not us.
Our economic system, predicated on the needs of production, relegates
the needs of /life/ to a secondary concern. - Terrapraeta, September 2009
%
The standard stereotypes of women are virgin, whore, mommy, and cheer-
leader/"pet". These stereotypical roles are not whole persons; they are
all about women-in-relation-to-men. The fifth stereotype, "bitch", is
often applied to women who refuse to conform to any of those four.
 - Victoria G. Laidler, September 2009
%
Your success will be measured in your ability to live alongside western
culture while being distinctly different. Whether you believe you will
succeed, or believe you will fail, you are probably right. You aren't
the first, you won't be the last. There are thousands of thriving
communities and your fears are unfounded. - Tony, IshThink, October 2009
%
Politicians lie. Voters believe. This is the great
symbiotic relationship of democratic politics.
 - Gary North, October 2009
%
Transition Towns presents a viable path towards mitigating the impact of
looming economic collapse and a hyper-concentration of wealth/influence.
[...] Global solutions are impossible since global governance is
firmly in the thrall of parasitic financial interests.
 - John Robb, November 2009
%
In 30,000 years of this new civilization we somehow managed to brainwash
most humans to believe that the whole planet was created by some guy who
looks kinda like us, for our species' *exclusive use* and benefit.
 - Dave Pollard, January 2006
%
Ci sono paesi in cui un gesto violento se compiuto da un uomo su una don-
na è punito più severamente: si chiama uguaglianza sostanziale, compensa
la disuguaglianza di partenza. [...] Se vince la cultura dei "vincenti"
le donne perderanno. Non fanno la guerra, in genere. È una perdita di
tempo: hanno altro da fare. - Concita De Gregorio, Novembre 2009
%
In many ways it's not what we have that's important to our quality of li-
fe - it's what we don't have. We don't have high crime rates, our police
don't carry guns and instances of corruption are virtually unheard of.
We don't have abject poverty or hunger and we don't have the pollution,
congestion, health issues and cramped city living that we see elsewhere.
 - New Zealand immigration department
%
La differenza tra Obama e Berlusconi è che Silvio non ha neanche un
consulente alla mimica. Lui insegnava queste tecniche ai suoi dipendenti
già nel 1976. E` un precursore e sicuramente uno dei più grandi specia-
listi del mondo. Quando parla, lui è assolutamente convinto di quello
che dice. Anche se sa che è falso. Questa è la sua magia.
E` messianicamente convinto. - Jacopo Fo, febbraio 2010
%
You don't use science to show that you're right,
you use science to become right.
 - http://xkcd.com/701/ , February 2010
%
Se Alcatraz è ancora aperta lo dobbiamo a un fascista onesto che 18 anni
fa prese pubblicamente le nostre difese quando un complotto criptocomu-
nista aveva deciso che dovevamo chiudere perché non stavamo ai giochini
e avevamo denunciato una serie di truffe e raggiri di sinistra.
 - Jacopo Fo, febbraio 2010
%
Ci sono i puttanieri, gli uomini che ricevono regali in puttane,
gli uomini che fanno regali in puttane, quelli che ricevono appalti,
favori legati a quegli appalti, posti di lavoro legati a quegli
appalti anche grazie ai regali in puttane. Poi ci sono le mogli di
tutta questa bella gente. Il "silenzio delle donne" sta tutto lì.
 - http://femminismo-a-sud.noblogs.org/, febbraio 2010
%
Frankly, the perception of many is that Wall Street's pros are guilty of
criminal fraud and traitorous behavior (they damaged the security and
future of the US for personal benefit).  Worse, they not only avoided
punishment, they were rewarded for it. - John Robb, February 2010
%
I suppose I'm just too new to this cooking thing to really get it.
I have at least a million years of catching up to do. What's this
desire for heat and the mingling of flavours all about, anyway?
Are my taste buds missing something, or is this a cultural thing,
like the desire to wear shoes? - Dave Pollard, February 2010
%
Any real love must start from within. You can't love others without
loving yourself first. And, of course, masturbation is the greatest
expression of self-love. So it's natural that we, the citizens of
the world, are joining together to masturbate for peace.
 - http://www.masturbateforpeace.com/
%
The global collapse in fertility rates and rise of feminism is not
the slow diffusion of a new idea, or a mechanistic response to aid
workers handing out condoms. This is the breaking of a logjam.
The logjam of a patriarchy that has suddenly lost its purpose.
 - Fred Pearce, Scientific American, June 2010
%
School: like prison, but better.
 - Clark Aldrich, June 2010
%
Industrial models of school and work have put such importance on
"the weekend." But [...] those individuals and families that have
found their own collective rhythms start seeing weekends as a dis-
traction to the week, not the point of it. - Clark Aldrich, June 2010
%
Possiamo sovrapporre la mappa delle aree dove le esperienze coopera-
tive sono più frequenti e radicalizzate e scoprire che corrisponde
perfettamente alla mappa delle regioni con i migliori servizi pub-
blici, il minor tasso di corruzione e criminalità, il maggior tasso
di occupazione e di reddito procapite. - Jacopo Fo, luglio 2010
%
Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford scho-
ols, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights - or once
it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial
priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Sec-
urity State - that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have
gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an im-
minent inevitability? - Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, August 2010
%
Che dire di un governo che non vuole incassare le risorse sequestrate
dalla magistratura per essere sicuro di non avere i soldi per gestire
efficientemente la repressione della criminalità e far funzionare i
tribunali? Che dire di un governo che non rispetta la legge rifiutan-
dosi di pagare i debiti dello Stato? - Jacopo Fo, settembre 2010
%
Secondo me Vendola non è mai stato un'alternativa credibile. Ha
ampiamente dimostrato di predicare bene e razzolare male, durante
questi sei anni di amministrazione in Puglia. E non posso dimenticare,
leader di un partito che si chiama Sinistra *Ecologia* Libertà, il
suo appoggio agli inceneritori. - Marco Ceresa, dicembre 2010
%
Ci sono poche cose che raccontano la situazione del nostro paese così
bene, come questa donna [la senatrice Mauro] che alla prima poltrona
che le danno, e alla prima contrarietà, tenta subito il suo piccolo
golpe. - thomas morton su friendfeed, dicembre 2010
%
Le donne raccontano sé stesse nella vita e su internet, l'unico medium
dove ancora sia possibile farlo senza che una telecamera ti inquadri
una parte del corpo mentre stai dicendo quello che pensi.
 - Michela Murgia, gennaio 2011
Nicola Larosa - http://www.tekNico.net/
%
I have come to see cities as ugly, fragile and crumbling human
artifacts that deny and work against nature. Likewise farms and
fields, monocultural lands that have been made possible by the
atrocious razing of ancient forests. - Dave Pollard, March 2011
%
È ormai impossibile star dietro a tutte le corbellerie che escono
dalla bocca di Voltremont, al secolo Giulio Tremonti. La velocità
alla quale spara cazzate, infatti, supera la velocità alla quale
una persona intellettualmente onesta può falsificarle.
 - Giulio Zanella, noisefromamerika.org, maggio 2011
%
Alle decine di migliaia di contadini profughi della zona intorno a
Fukushima si comincia a spiegare, con tatto, che forse non potranno
mai più mettere piede sulla terra che i loro padri hanno coltivato per
millenni. Ma sembra che al momento rifiutino ostinatamente di afferrare
il concetto. - Debora Billi, Il Fatto Quotidiano, marzo 2011
%
The Gift Economy is a whole set of systems: social, political,
economic, technological, health, educational, etc. based on abundance
and self-sufficiency. And the only thing holding us back from realizing
them is our false belief, instilled through centuries of propaganda,
that the only way to live is a life of scarcity and struggle.
 - Dave Pollard, July 2011
%
L’indagine conoscitiva sul femminicidio condotta dal 2005 a livello
nazionale, dalla Casa delle donne di Bologna denuncia una crescita nel
numero delle vittime [donne assassinate dal partner]: 84 nel 2005, 101
nel 2006, 107 nel 2007, 112 nel 2008, 119 nel 2009, 127 nel 2010.
 - Nadia Somma, luglio 2011
%
And recently, I am beginning to have this discussion in a new light:
not the grim business of surviving a long series of cascading crises,
but the joyful business of liberating ourselves from a way of living
that has never been right for us, and which has always been con-
straining, oppressive, debilitating, and horrifically destructive
to our world and to our souls. - Dave Pollard, July 2011
%
Our ancestors thought that the more efficient catastrophic agriculture
would serve us better than permaculture, and that is what Jared Diamond
calls our “worst mistake”. Might we be smart enough next time to adopt
permaculture instead? My sense is that we will, but it will take time
and ideological struggle before we get there. - Dave Pollard, July 2011
%
The alternative to collapse is this kind of nasty slow burn that
leaves a completely devastated planet incapable of supporting life.
So the faster this pustule is pierced, the more hope for the patient.
It is like lancing a boil. It may be an unsightly process, but the
sooner it happens, the better for everyone.
 - Dmitry Orlov, August 2011
%
No combination of private marauders can possibly begin to match
the state's unremitting record of theft, confiscation, oppression,
and mass murder. No collection of Mafia or private bank robbers
can begin to compare with all the Hiroshimas, Dresdens, and
Lidices and their analogues through the history of mankind.
 - Murray Rothbard, December 1974
%
Pill-mania has eroded the fundamentals of reproductive rights - choice,
freedom and education. [...] The Pill has developed into a medication
for the disease of being female. In place of changing society, society
decided to fix women. - Holly Grigg-Spall, May 2010
%
PIIGS will not learn how to fly. But they remain aboard the Eurozone's
central bank-funded hot air balloon by fattening up on loans from
governments and the ECB until they finally relieve themselves
from on high. Stay out from under. - Gary North, September 2011
%
Perché è tanto difficile mettersi in testa che dire "sputtanato"
significa dare una sberla in faccia a tutte le donne (cioè a più
di mezza umanità) mentre è facile immaginare che a dire "negro" o
"terrone" si offende qualcuno? - Lorenzo Gasparrini, ottobre 2011