Coup Quotes

“Perhaps you have forgotten. That’s one of the great problems of our modern world, you know. Forgetting. The victim never forgets. Ask an Irishman what the English did to him in 1920 and he’ll tell you the day of the month and the time and the name of every man they killed. Ask an Iranian what the English did to him in 1953 and he’ll tell you. His child will tell you. His grandchild will tell you. And when he has one, his great-grandchild will tell you too. But ask an Englishman—” He flung up his hands in mock ignorance. “If he ever knew, he has forgotten. ‘Move on!’ you tell us. ‘Move on! Forget what we’ve done to you. Tomorrow’s another day!’ But it isn’t, Mr. Brue.” He still had Brue’s hand. “Tomorrow was created yesterday, you see. That is the point I was making to you. And by the day before yesterday, too. To ignore history is to ignore the wolf at the door.”
― John le Carré, A Most Wanted Man

“This is the week,
the primetime hearings on insurrection
and sedition,
our last chance to make known
and believed
the ugly truth of our last president,
the nefarious doings of his cohorts,
the insanity we all witnessed and went through,
the coup we just barely avoided.

It's now or never.

The jury is out,
the jury of public opinion.

The jury is us.”
― Shellen Lubin

“A successful coup ain't a treason.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“You have to be a dead-eyed dirty-souled maniac to want to spend your extended life trading punches with other maniacs. Once you've seized that power, there's no getting off the merry-go-round. You fight like hell just to hold on or you get shoved off.”
― Scott Lynch, Rogues

“The USA demanding that North Korea halt its nuclear program is akin to the fox demanding that the hens open their coup.”
― Steven Magee

“Those men are now fighting against the government's army, and the people who live in the town don't know whose side to choose. They only want the violence to stop. Nobody knows which side is right anymore.”
― Jasmine Warga, Other Words for Home

“Solemnly, for once looking a little awed, a little like a small-town boy on Broadway, Windrip took the oath, administered by the Chief Justice (who disliked him very much indeed) and, edging even closer to the microphone, squawked, "My fellow citizens, as the President of the United States of America, I want to inform you that the real New Deal has started right this minute, and we're all going to enjoy the manifold liberties to which our history entitles us—and have a whale of a good time doing it! I thank you!"

That was his first act as President. His second was to take up residence in the White House, where he sat down in the East Room in his stocking feet and shouted at Lee Sarason, "This is what I've been planning to do now for six years! I bet this is what Lincoln used to do! Now let 'em assassinate me!"

His third, in his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, was to order that the Minute Men be recognized as an unpaid but official auxiliary of the Regular Army, subject only to their own officers, to Buzz, and to High Marshal Sarason; and that rifles, bayonets, automatic pistols, and machine guns be instantly issued to them by government arsenals. That was at 4 P.M. Since 3 P.M., all over the country, bands of M.M.'s had been sitting gloating over pistols and guns, twitching with desire to seize them.

Fourth coup was a special message, next morning, to Congress (in session since January fourth, the third having been a Sunday), demanding the instant passage of a bill embodying Point Fifteen of his election platform—that he should have complete control of legislation and execution, and the Supreme Court be rendered incapable of blocking anything that it might amuse him to do.

By Joint Resolution, with less than half an hour of debate, both houses of Congress rejected that demand before 3 P.M., on January twenty-first. Before six, the President had proclaimed that a state of martial law existed during the "present crisis," and more than a hundred Congressmen had been arrested by Minute Men, on direct orders from the President. The Congressmen who were hotheaded enough to resist were cynically charged with "inciting to riot"; they who went quietly were not charged at all. It was blandly explained to the agitated press by Lee Sarason that these latter quiet lads had been so threatened by "irresponsible and seditious elements" that they were merely being safeguarded. Sarason did not use the phrase "protective arrest," which might have suggested things.”
― Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here

“Our plastic muskets, though powderless, will frontload, and our coup will not be bloodless, nor will the blood be lambly. It will stain the lion's den whose bars though invisible are verily there as well roll along, doo-da doo-da and a thousand lonely dirges.”
― Adam Levin, The Instructions

“People who never experienced war, One difference or argument, then they are ready to start a war. People who had been to war, they are trying everything to avoid war and to live in peace, because they know what war can do. War is like fire. You cannot control it. Once you start it. Everyone will die or be hurt by it. Including innocent people and it is difficult to stop it.”
― De philosopher DJ Kyos

“Choose to do things, because you want to, not because they told you or made you do it. Reason being lot of people choose to do or say bad things. If they know they can deny the responsibility of the outcome or they can shift the blame, when the results are bad. Not everyone has best interest for you at heart. Mostly, they are looking out for themselves. People can put your life in danger, as long it won't affect them.”
― De philosopher DJ Kyos

“No fool stays in power for years on end when there are so many generals, sons, and wives waiting in the wings to launch a coup.”
― Bruce Bueno De Mesquita, The Predictioneer's Game: Using the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future

“In Guatemala, in 1954, a legally elected government was overthrown by an invasion force of mercenaries trained by the CIA at military bases in Honduras and Nicaragua and supported by four American fighter planes flown by American pilots. The invasion put into power Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, who had at one time received military training at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. The government that the United States overthrew was the most democratic Guatemala had ever had. The President, Jacobo Arbenz,
was a left-of-center Socialist; four of the fifty-six seats in the Congress were held by Communists. What was most unsettling to American business interests was that Arbenz had expropriated 234,000 acres of
land owned by United Fruit, offering compensation that United Fruit called "unacceptable." Armas, in power, gave the land back to United Fruit, abolished the tax on interest and dividends to foreign investors,
eliminated the secret ballot, and jailed thousands of political critics.”
― Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present

“Starting from the premise of the organic unity of the nation, the opposition can be painted as social groups outside the ‘nation’, since, simply put, they threaten the nation’s natural harmony. However, this concept is only plausible if the regime, or, more precisely, the military, is able to portray itself as a representative of the nation and guardian of the state, which it has been very successful in doing. Hence, opposition to the military regime is equated with treason to the nation, and thus should be repressed by any means necessary.
The narrative used to solicit popular support involved the propagation of numerous conspiracy theories, including the claim that the events of 2011, the groups that participated in it, and those who support it are part of a systemic effort to destroy the Egyptian state, which was only thwarted by the military’s intervention in 2013.”
Chapter “Genesis”, page 33”
― Maged Mandour, Egypt under El-Sisi: A Nation on the Edge

“The most notable amendment is the alteration to Article 200, which describes the constitutional role of the military. This amendment extends the military’s duties to include the ‘protection of the constitution, democracy, the state and its secular nature, and personal freedoms.’ This phrase has radical implications, the most notable of which is that it paves the way for continued military intervention in politics, if and when it deems that the secular nature of that state, democracy or personal freedoms are threatened by an elected civilian government. This is very cynical, considering that the military autocracy has been the main violator of the freedoms mentioned in the amendment. In fact, this is the military’s option of last resort, in the event that popular pressure forces a free election and that a civilian government is elected. This is a very similar argument to the one made by the Algerian military on the eve of the coup in 1992, when elections won by F.I.S. were voided, triggering a bloody civil war that lasted the better part of a decade (Evans and John, 2007). Hidden in the language of the amendment is a very dangerous ideological imperative, which identifies the military with the ‘state’ rather than with the elected government of the day. It assumes that since the military is serving the ‘state’, then the military—and only the military—is able to defend the ‘state’ against the incompetence of civilians. In other words, the amendment assumes that the military’s supremacy over civilians is the natural order of things. This assumption is deeply rooted in the regime’s ideological construct, where the ‘state’ is imagined as an almost mythical entity that has to be protected against the folly of civilian politicians and the demands for democratization. In essence, the amendment turns the concept of popular sovereignty on its head, with the source of sovereignty transferred from the popular will to the military, as the ultimate guardian of the ‘state’. This entrenches a paternalistic attitude towards the citizenry, as incompetent simpletons who, in a moment of folly, might elect a government that could destroy the ‘state’. Finer identifies acceptance of civilian supremacy as one of the pre-conditions for restraining a military’s interventionist appetite (Finer, 2002). This is clearly not the case in Egypt, where prospective future coups now have a solid constitutional basis.”
Chapter 2: The New Leviathan, pages 52-53”
― Maged Mandour, Egypt under El-Sisi: A Nation on the Edge