#totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is patriotism institutionalized. ↗

— Steve Allen

#patriotism #totalitarianism

Corporate nationalism to me is a little bit like what would have happened if Hitler had won. It's scary stuff. It's totalitarianism in a different from, under a different flavour. ↗

— Lance Henriksen

#corporate #different #flavour #had #happened

It was sometimes feebly argued, as the political and military war against this enemy ran into difficulties, that it was 'a war without end.' I never saw the point of this plaintive objection. The war against superstition and the totalitarian mentality is an endless war. In protean forms, it is fought and refought in every country and every generation. In bin Ladenism we confront again the awful combination of the highly authoritarian personality with the chaotically nihilist and anarchic one. Temporary victories can be registered against this, but not permanent ones. As Bertold Brecht's character says over the corpse of the terrible Arturo Ui, the bitch that bore him is always in heat. But it is in this struggle that we develop the muscles and sinews that enable us to defend civilization, and the moral courage to name it as something worth fighting for. ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#authoritarianism #bertold-brecht #islamism #nihilism #osama-bin-laden

Democracy's a very fragile thing. You have to take care of democracy. As soon as you stop being responsible to it and allow it to turn into scare tactics, it's no longer democracy, is it? It's something else. It may be an inch away from totalitarianism. ↗

— Sam Shepard

#away #being #being responsible #care #democracy

Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face. ↗

— Thomas Sowell

#human #human face #liberalism #totalitarianism

If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever. ↗

— George Orwellll

#injustice #totalitarianism #imagination

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy? ↗

— Mahatma Gandhi

#fascism #liberty #loss #politics #society

A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. ↗

— George Orwell

#theocracy #totalitarianism #religion

Having lived through the transition from totalitarianism, I am acutely mindful of the need to never take for granted the basic freedoms of thought, expression and belief that democracy brings. ↗

— Daisaku Ikeda

#am #basic #belief #brings #democracy

What I'm saying is simply that every totalitarian society, no matter how strict, has had its underground. In fact, two undergrounds. There's the underground involved in political resistance and the underground involved in preserving beauty and fun--which is to say, preserving the human spirit. ↗

— Tom Robbins

#still-life-with-woodpecker #tom-robbins #totalitarianism #beauty