Oligarchy Quotes

“There has always been, and there is now, a profound conflict of interest between the people and the government of the United States.”
― Howard Zinn

“Representative government is artifice, a political myth, designed to conceal from the masses the dominance of a self-selected, self-perpetuating, and self-serving traditional ruling class.”
― Giuseppe Prezzolini

“Those in power must spend a lot of their time laughing at us.”
― Alice Walker

“Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.”
― Aristotle

“We are in a prison of our own minds holding our own chains around us. We create our oligarchs and fight for their right to oppress us.”
― Heather Marsh, Binding Chaos

“So nobody must be allowed to think at all. Down with the public schools! Children must be drilled mentally by quarter-educated herdsmen, whose wages would stop at the first sign of disagreement with the bosses. For the rest, deafen the whole world with senseless clamour. Mechanize everything! Give nobody a chance to think. Standardize "amusement." The louder and more cacophonous, the better! Brief intervals between one din and the next can be filled with appeals, repeated 'till hypnotic power gives them the force of orders, to buy this or that product of the "Business men" who are the real power in the State. Men who betray their country as obvious routine.

The history of the past thirty years is eloquent enough, one would think. What these sodden imbeciles never realize is that a living organism must adapt itself intelligently to its environment, or go under at the first serious change of circumstance.”
― Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears

“We certainly face, as did the ancient Greeks, the problem of oligarchy—ever more threatening as globalization increases differences in wealth.”
― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

“To proclaim 'America First' was to deny any need to fight fascism either at home or abroad. When American Nazis and white supremacists marched in Charlottesville in August 2017, Trump said that some of them were 'very fine people.' He defended the Confederate and Nazi cause of preserving monuments to the Confederacy. Such monuments in the American South were raised in the 1920s and 1930s, at a time when fascism in the United States was a real possibility; they memorialized the racial purification of Southern cities that was contemporary with the rise of fascism in Europe. Contemporary observers had no difficulty seeing the connection. Will Rogers, the great American entertainer and social commentator of his time, saw Adolf Hitler in 1933 as a familiar figure: 'Papers all state that Hitler is trying to copy Mussolini. Looks to me it's the KKK he's copying.' The great American social thinker and historian W.E.B. Du Bois could see how the temptations of fascism worked together with American myths of the past. He rightly feared that American whites would prefer a story about enmity with blacks to a reforming state that would improve prospects for all Americans. Whites distracted by racism could become, as he wrote in 1935, 'the instrument by which democracy in the nation was done to death, race provincialism deified, and the world delivered to plutocracy,' what we call oligarchy.”
― Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America

“Oligarchies, throughout past history, have always thought more of their own advantage than of that of the rest of the community. It would be foolish to be morally indignant with them on this account; human nature, in the main and in the mass, is egoistic, and in most circumstances a fair dose of egoism is necessary for survival. It was revolt against the selfishness of past political oligarchies that produced the Liberal movement in favour of democracy, and it was revolt against economic oligarchies that produced Socialism. But although everybody who was in any degree progressive recognised the evils of oligarchy throughout the past history of mankind, many progressives were taken in by an argument for a new kind of oligarchy. ‘We, the progressives’ — so runs the argument — ‘are the wise and good; we know what reforms the world needs; if we have power, we shall create a paradise.’ And so, narcissistically hypnotised by contemplation of their own wisdom and goodness, they proceeded to create a new tyranny, more drastic than any previously known.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society

“You do not have to think very hard to figure out what happens to a democratic society (more accurately a democratic republic) when long-standing interpretations of the 'rules of law' are mangled to reflect the personal desires of a handful of extremely wealthy people…”
― Aberjhani, Democratic Dilemmas and Divine Inspiration: On leadership and the fate of freedom in America

“You said that today, in order to rid the world of Jews and Gypsies and all the lesser races it takes political will and ingenuity and above all superior military might. But someday, you said, all it will take will be money. Someday, money will choose the leaders and write the laws; money will protect those who work outside the law and hide the true power brokers. money will allow all that we were never able to accomplish to finally come to pass.”
― Charlie Lovett, The Enigma Affair

“Fascism is always about controlling the narrative of the public. Any bad incident or bad decision is never their fault. It is always someone else’s fault.
It is the opposition’s fault, it is foreign powers fault, or it is the minority population’s fault. As long as they control the narrative, they control the power.”
― Shon Mehta

“you call me anarchist. You, who have destroyed the government of the people”
― Jack London, The Iron Heel

“In addition to the authoritarian role that U.S. police play by selectively enforcing rules made by those with power in an unequal society, they also have a long history of both overtly supporting and actively being infiltrated by the far right.”
― Alec Karakatsanis, Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News

“Here's a fact omitted in many article about growing numbers of poor people living on the street: if the U.S. had remained as equitable as it was in 1975 for the next forty-three years through 2018, the bottom 90 percent of Americans would have earned an extra $47 trillion. Instead that money went to people already at the top, who use that money, among other things, to influence the political system and to hoard real estate.”
― Alec Karakatsanis, Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News

“There is nothing more cataclysmic than a sea of unarmed citizens out for justice - even the richest oligarchic leeches, armed with billions of robots, tanks and satellites, would crumble like twigs.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Little Planet on The Prairie: Dunya Benim, Sorumluluk Benim

“Corporate sponsored voice amplification will lead to corporate controlled oligarchy.”
― Heather Marsh, Binding Chaos: Mass Collaboration on a Global Scale

“A country starting as a democracy but slowly transforms into an oligarchy.”
― Dipti Dhakul, Quote: +/-

“Data is Power (Sonnet)

Coming from a childhood passion for
electronics, initially I fostered a
favorable outlook on Artificial Intelligence,
but as further implications are beginning to
unfold, I'm developing an ominous distaste.

There is no question about the computational
capacities of AI, but humans are not equipped
to fathom, how to apply such power positively.
Then there is the question of instant garbage
generated by lazy prompts, passed as creativity.

It took 3 years of sweat and vision
for Michelangelo to sculpt David,
today AGI can do that in mere hours.
Does such instant cosmetic art have
any value! AI art is just fancy knockoff.

Human mind seeks understanding,
AI seeks data - lots and lots of data.
AI's hunger for data is matched only
by the billionaire's hunger for power.

How much power is enough power,
particularly now when data is power!
What's the point of power and data,
if they just empower criminal behavior!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“Hope Gone Sour (American Sonnet)

America is not a country,
America is an abomination.
America is a scourge on
the fabric of time, the
ideal tale of precaution.

America is a living record
of humans regressing to animal.
America is a perfect specimen
of democracy cleverly dismantled.

America is a nation built by
terrorists for the terrorists.
America holds world record for
humanity's worst of atrocities.

America is a promise of hope gone sour.
America is plague amongst fellowship of powers.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“This prehistoric world has an instinctual affinity to black and white concepts – to binary concepts – and a gigantic blind spot for grey areas. Justice is too grand an exercise to be contained by the primitive dualistic nonsense of violence and nonviolence.

Let me put this into perspective. Bullets are an act of violence, silence is an act of nonviolence – but there is a third option – the option of the slipper. Slippers are more effective in fighting bugs, than bullets – bullets make martyr of the bugs, slippers put them in their place. When the slippers of a nation’s civilians combine, even the mightiest of tyrant is bound to fall – be it a state head, court judge or law enforcement officer.

Whenever a bunch of bugs turn the courts into a cradle of animal masculinity – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the parliament into a cradle of fundamentalism and bigotry – whenever a bunch of bugs turn the police stations into a cradle of badge-bearing barbarism – grab hold of that household bug-repellent you wear on your feet, and put them to some good, wholesome use. Treat the corrupt and bigoted like your children, and do with them as you would your own child when they go astray.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulletproof Backbone: Injustice Not Allowed on My Watch

“When mercenaries run a democracy,
the nation becomes a business,
and the public vote becomes a commodity
that can be bought and sold in a market.”
― Shon Mehta, The Uncharted Mind

“The malignant Tumor of the banking Organism, the Termite Infestation in this wooden System, the insatiable Lion in an Oligarchy ruled by Boars..”
― Sino Melo

“That Day I'll Call You Human (Sonnet)

I shall call you all human,
the day you bring down all borders,
like you brought down the Berlin wall.

I shall call you all human,
the day you abolish all military,
like you abolished the SS.

I shall call you all human,
the day you eradicate fundamentalism,
like you eradicated polio.

I shall call you all human,
the day you ban the oligarchs,
like you tackled corona.

If you can't be a tsunami, be a flash flood -
if you can't be a flash flood, be a garden hose,
and wash away the inhumanities around you.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Neurosonnets: The Naskar Art of Neuroscience

“We lay blame and fault on the government, because we can't control the capitalists, until the capitalists become the government, and then it is too late.”
― Lawrence Nault - The Mountain Hermit

“Жменька людей з яхтами є політично згуртованішою та могутнішою за величезну масу тих, хто яхт не має, — і ця жменька готова діяти, щоб так тривало й надалі.”
― Timothy Snyder (author), On Freedom

“Demo in democracy means nothing, as demo can mean people, public, or state.” The cat continued, “Democracy is just a system of power and oppression. All power becomes oligarchy or ochlocracy. Charles wanted a republic, not a democracy. He wanted a system that guarantees voting and communal servitude between the state and people. There was no power but social contract. But you wanted power compared to strength.”
― Kolter Sands, Tomiétrèla

“At the end of the century, fascism leaves no lasting mark on thousand year old civilizations, it's only the adolescent countries like the US that get wiped out of existence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Sonnets From The Mountaintop

“I want to hope, because I want to live in a country where people are fed, and not bankrupted by illness, and not too focused on fighting over personal dogmatic beliefs to do any real good for this world, for their fellow brothers and sisters. But oh, those powers that be are SO good at stirring up rage and putting divisive blinders around our eyes while they lead us all off a bloody cliff.”
― Jennifer DeLucy

“one cannot ignore associating laboratory rats with the millions of deprived young people who suffer under the merciless political and administrative experiments carried out by dictators, multinationals and mercenary militias.”
― Hanan Jasim Khammas