“One may safely say that it would be no sin if statesmen learned enough of history to realise that no system, which implies control of society by privilege seekers, has ever ended in any other way than collapse.”
William E. Dodd, US Ambassador, Address to the American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin, 1933
“Wall Street had been doing business with pieces of paper; and now someone asked for a dollar, and it was discovered that the dollar had been mislaid. It was an experience for which the captains of industry were not entirely prepared; they had forgotten the public. It was like some great convulsion of nature, which made mockery of all the powers of men, and left the beholder dazed and terrified. In Wall Street men stood as if in a valley, and saw far above them the starting of an avalanche; they stood fascinated with horror, and watched it gathering headway; saw the clouds of dust rising up, and heard the roar of it swelling, and realized it was only a matter of time before it swept them to their destruction…
But it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it.”
Upton Sinclair, The Moneychangers
“You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the grace of the eternal God, I will rout you out.”
Andrew Jackson
are we there yet?
The very same new conditions that will on the average lead to the leveling and mediocritization of man —to a useful, industrious, handy, multi-purpose herd animal—are likely in the highest degree to give birth to exceptional human beings of the most dangerous and attractive quality.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
“Democracy is a ‘religion’ in every sense of the word: It deals with an unseen, mystical force (the popular will); it has a priestly class that discerns the popular will (politicians and the media); it has martyrs (soldiers), rituals (voting) and dogmas (‘every vote counts’); it aims to fulfill the spiritual need of human beings to be a part of something larger than themselves; and it treats non-believers (non-voters) as heretics to be shamed and ostracized.”
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Ellen Finnigan (