Susan Rosenthal: Like a giant casino, capitalism promises much and delivers little. A few strike it rich, re-enforcing the myth that you can do the same. But the game is rigged by the capitalist class. The harder we work, the richer they get, and the sicker we become. As in every con, capitalism must resign the losers to their losses so they do not organise to end the con. Promoting the fiction of personal choice misdirects us to blame ourselves. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2951
Susan Rosenthal: Capitalism has perfected the art of making things appear different from how they are. It appears that work and life are two separate spheres: the economic sphere of work where we meet our material needs; and the personal sphere of family, friendship, love, interests and hobbies where we meet our emotional needs. It also appears that different rules apply in each sphere. The sphere of work is shaped by the economics of capitalism, while the personal sphere seems to be shaped, not by capitalism, but by psychology and interpersonal dynamics. This dual-sphere model leads to dual solutions: an economic revolution to transform work; and a separate personal revolution to transform our relationships. In reality, there is only one sphere, capitalism, that we experience socially and individually — one sphere with one solution. The liberal emphasis on personal choice hides the impact of capitalism as a social system and deflects workers from our common class interests. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2952
Susan Rosenthal: Capital is most effectively extracted from workers who do not question their exploitation, who “mind their betters” and “keep their noses to the grindstone”. For the majority working class, obedience is demanded, questioning is forbidden and defiance is punished. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2953
Susan Rosenthal: In reality, capitalism makes life unbearable. An estimated 800,000 people around the world kill themselves every year, and millions more attempt suicide or wish they were dead. Being unhappy is a reasonable response to being exploited and oppressed. However, we do not live in a reasonable society; we live in a blaming, shaming society where those who cannot cope, those who fall outside the expected norms, and those who rebel are stigmatised as defective. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2954
Susan Rosenthal: The capitalist emphasis on personal choice is not about who we are or who we want to be. It is a political ploy to divert us from our common class interests. The key to fighting deprivation is class solidarity, not charity. When the ruling class fails to meet our needs, we must hold it accountable, organising in every neighbourhood, school and workplace until we get what we need. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2955
Susan Rosenthal: Capitalism is a social system that seeps into every fibre of our beings; there is no part of our lives or our relationships that it does not touch. From birth to death we are immersed in racist, sexist, homophobic and class ideology. No one is immune to the impact. It is impossible to eliminate bigotry and interpersonal violence without politically challenging the social system that breeds this behaviour. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2956
Susan Rosenthal: We get some personal choices under capitalism. We can choose to despair or we can choose to hope. We can choose to accept the world as it is or we can choose to struggle against it. We can blame ourselves and each other for our misery or we can pull together to meet everyone’s needs. We can hide in our homes or we can fight with our class. What we choose will determine the fate of the world. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2957
Eugene V. Debs: The capitalist of our day, who is the social, economic and political successor of the feudal lord of the Middle Ages, and the patrician master of the ancient world, holds the great mass of the people in bondage, not by owning them under the law, nor by having sole proprietorship of the land, but by virtue of his ownership of industry, the tools and machinery with which work is done and wealth produced. In a word, the capitalist owns the tools and the jobs of the workers, and they are his economic dependents. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2958
Karl Marx: How silent is the press of England upon the outrageous violations of the treaty daily practiced by foreigners living in China under British protection! We hear nothing of the illicit opium trade, which yearly feeds the British treasury at the expense of human life and morality. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2963
Gramsci: The Vatican is, without doubt, the largest and most powerful private organisation that has ever existed. In certain aspects it has the character of a state, and is recognised as such by a number of governments. Although the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy has considerably diminished the Vatican’s influence, it still remains one of the most efficient political forces in modern history. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2964
Gramsci: The organisational base of the Vatican is in Italy. It is here that the headquarters of the various catholic organisations reside. Their complex networks embrace a large part of the globe. The ecclesiastical apparatus of the Vatican consists of around 200,000 people. That is an imposing figure – particularly when one considers that they include many thousands of cultured and intelligent individuals who possess consummate ability in the art of intrigue. Many of these men embody the most ancient (and tested) traditions concerning the control of the masses – and, in consequence, constitute the largest reactionary force in Italy. It is all the more formidable precisely because of its insidious and elusive nature. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2965
Gramsci: Before attempting its coup d'état, fascism had to reach an understanding with this powerful institution. They say that the Vatican, although very interested in the ascension of fascism to power, demanded a very high price for its support. It is rumoured that the rescue of the Bank of Rome, where all ecclesiastical funds were deposited, cost the Italian taxpayers more than a billion lire. People often speak of the Vatican and its influence without understanding in any detail its structure and the real strengths of the organisation. It is worth while taking a proper look. The Vatican is an international enemy of the revolutionary proletariat. It is clear that the Italian working class must resolve the problem of the papacy in large part with its own hands. But it is equally clear that this goal cannot be achieved unless the international proletariat also rises to the occasion. The ecclesiastical organisation of the Vatican reflects its international character. The Vatican constitutes the base of the papacy’s power both in Italy and around the world. In Italy one finds two principle catholic organisations: 1) The mass organisation, the most religious of all, officially based on the ecclesiastical hierarchy: the Popular Union of Italian Catholics (or, as the papers currently call it, Catholic Action). 2) A political party – the Popular Party of Italy, which recently almost entered into open conflict with Catholic Action. The Popular Party is increasingly becoming the organisation of the low clergy and the poor peasants. Meanwhile Catholic Action finds itself in the hands of the aristocracy, the big landowners and the higher ranks of the clergy – reactionaries and fascist sympathisers. The pope is the supreme head of both the ecclesiastic apparatus and of Catholic Action. The latter organisation disregards national congresses and any other form of democratic organisation. It also ignores (at least officially) tendencies, fractions and currents of different ideas. It is constructed on a hierarchical basis, from top to bottom. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2966
S. J. Rutgers: The entire capitalist class is determined to drown society in blood and let civilization, material and intellectual, crash down into the bottomless abyss of universal ruin and chaos, rather than of its free will, concede to the proletariat one single position of power. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2967
Moissaye J. Olgin: As to bankers and brokers, real estate operators and promoters — they do not produce anything essential to human life although they have the lion’s share of control over production. As a matter of fact, they produce nothing. They transfer “paper” from hand to hand. That paper — call it checks or deeds or drafts or shares — is a claim to the fruits of somebody else’s labor. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2968
Che Guevara: The government of the United States represents, as its army also does, the finances of the United States. But these finances do not represent the North American people; they represent a small group of financiers, the owners of all the big enterprises... who also exploit the North American people. Clearly they do not exploit them in the same manner that they exploit us, the human beings of inferior races... for we have not had the good fortune of being born from blond, Anglo-Saxon parents. But they do exploit and divide them, they too are divided into blacks and whites, and they too are divided into men and women, union and non-union, employed and unemployed. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2969
Saramago: It seems indecent to talk about (democracy) in the abstract, without the stimulus given by the presence, the participation and the involvement of citizens in community life. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2970
Fidel Castro: Today, there are, as we know, theoretical super-revolutionaries, super-Leftists, veritable “supermen” if you will, who can destroy imperialism in a jiffy with their tongues. There are many super-revolutionaries lacking all notions of reality about the problems and difficulties of a revolution. They are prompted by sentiments carefully fostered by imperialism and are full of fierce hatred. It is as if they refused to forgive the Soviet Union its existence, and this from “Left-wing” positions. They would like a Soviet Union according to their strange model, according to their ridiculous ideals. Yet a country is primarily a reality, one made up of numerous other realities. The exponents of these trends forget the incredible initial difficulties of the revolutionary process in the Soviet Union, the incredible initial difficulties of the revolutionary process in the Soviet Union, the incredible problems arising from the blockade, isolation and fascist aggression. They pretend not to know anything about all this and regard the existence of the Soviet Union as almost a crime, and this from “Left-wing” which is an act of absolute dishonesty. They forget the problems of Cuba, of Vietnam, of the Arab world. They forget that wherever imperialism is striking its blows it comes up against a country which sends the people the arms they need to defend themselves. We recall Playa Giron these days. We well remember the anti-aircraft artillery, the tanks and guns and mortars and other weapons that enabled us to smash the mercenaries. This means that the existence of the Soviet state is objectively one of the most extraordinary privileges of the revolutionary movement. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2974
Sarah Kendzior: When wealth is passed off as merit, bad luck is seen as bad character. This is how ideologues justify punishing the sick and the poor. But poverty is neither a crime nor a character flaw. Stigmatise those who let people die, not those who struggle to live. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2978
Franklin D. Roosevelt: I find it difficult this Spring and Summer to get away from the simple fact that the Russian armies are killing more Axis personnel and destroying more Axis materiel than all the other 25 United Nations put together. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2979
Thomas Sankara: I said no to food aid because they have not helped us to develop. They have instead created a beggar mentality, we hold out our hands to receive food. That is not a good thing. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2980
Thomas Sankara: Our families have stopped producing, because they can not sell what they produce. The surplus from farmers in other countries is brought in here. We want something else. Those who really want to help us can give us ploughs, tractors, fertilizer, insecticide, watering cans, drills, dams. That is how we would define food aid. But those who come with wheat, millet, corn or milk are not helping us. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote2981
