Popular quotes about Democratic! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 31
(Terrorists) are planning to disrupt our democratic process. It's scary I know, but we're not going to let al Qaeda tell us what to do. In fact, our government has decided that if al Qaeda attempts to disrupt our democratic process, we are going to respond by disrupting it first.
Jon StewartDemocratic Party elites have been caught red-handed, sabotaging a grassroots campaign that tried to bring huge numbers of young people, independents and non-voters into their party. Instead, they have shown exactly why America needs a new major party, a truly democratic party for the people.
Jill SteinAs Democratic losses mounted in Senate races across the country on election night, some liberal commentators clung to the idea that dissatisfied voters were sending a generally anti-incumbent message, and not specifically repudiating Democratic officeholders. But the facts of the election just don't support that story.
Byron YorkNow the masses of Latin America are electing governments they feel can take forward the democratic reforms of the last 20 years, and transform them into social and economic reforms. This is, I think, extremely important, because it also means that the left has abandoned the revolutionary solution proposed by Che Guevara and has taken the democratic path.
Carlos FuentesWhen I saw Fannie Lou Hamer speech I said, "Well, how did this Democratic Party that Miss Hamer is talking about, become the Democratic Party that now is the party of the African-American community?"
Leah D. DaughtryWhat is also true is that partly because my docket was really full here, so I couldn't be both chief organizer of the Democratic Party and function as Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States. We did not begin what I think needs to happen over the long haul, and that is rebuild the Democratic Party at the ground level.
Barack ObamaIt was the custom when men received nominations to come to me for contributions, and I made them and considered them good paying investments for the company. In a Republican district I was a strong Republican; in a Democratic district I was Democratic, and in doubtful districts I was doubtful. In politics I was an Erie Railroad man all the time.
Jay Gould... an essential feature of a decent society, and an almost defining feature of a democratic society, is relative equality of outcome - not opportunity, but outcome. Without that you can't seriously talk about a democratic state... These concepts of the common good have a long life. They lie right at the core of classical liberalism, of Enlightenment thinking... Like Aristotle, [Adam] Smith understood that the common good will require substantial intervention to assure lasting prosperity of the poor by distribution of public revenues.
Noam ChomskyWe can't attribute a long history of democratic traditions to Japan, either, but today Japan boasts a fully-fledged democracy in which governments change according to democratic procedures. It's no coincidence that the Taiwanese, Japanese, and South Korean economies are among the most innovative in Asia.
Garry KasparovWhat we are lacking in Burma is an independence effective judiciary, and unless we have all three of the democratic institutions - strong and healthy, we cannot say that our democratic processes (is complete).
Aung San Suu KyiI do believe that Chancellor Merkel and Germany are a lynchpin in protecting the basic tenets of a liberal, market-based democratic order that has created unprecedented prosperity and security for Europe, but also for the world.
Barack ObamaThe present combination of corporate or commercial control theoretically answerable to politically appointed Boards of Governors is not in any sense a democratic enough procedure to control the power the broadcasters have.
Tony BennThe truth is that the United States doesn't need, and shouldn't have, a debt ceiling. Every other democratic country, with the exception of Denmark, does fine without one.
James SurowieckiI want to say that Russia is developing along a democratic path, this is without question so. No one should have any doubts about that. The fact that, amidst political rivalry and some other domestic developments, we see things happen here that are typical of other countries, I do not see anything unusual in it. We have rallies, opposition rallies. And people here have the right to express their point of view. However, if people, while expressing their views, break the current legislation, the effective law in place, then of course, the law enforcement agencies try to restore order.
Vladimir PutinWhat is invaluable about Angela Davis work is that she does not limit her politics to issues removed from broader social considerations, but connects every aspect of her scholarship and public interventions to what the contours of a truly democratic society might look like.
Henry GirouxMore and more too, the old name absorbs into me. Mannahatta, 'the place encircled by many swift tides and sparkling waters.' How fit a name for America's great democratic island city! The word itself, how beautiful! how aboriginal! how it seems to rise with tall spires, glistening in sunshine, with such New World atmosphere, vista and action!
Walt WhitmanI think the Democratic Party has the chronic problem of appearing to be weak, of not standing and fighting for what it believes in, not fighting for its own.
James CarvilleThe politics of personal destruction, the politics of division, the politics of fear, it's all there. It helps you to define the politics of moderation - the politics of democratic respect, the politics of hope - more clearly.
Michael IgnatieffFaced with the potential of mass atrocities and a call for help from the Libyan people, the United States and our friends and allies stopped Gadhafi's forces in their tracks. A coalition that included the United States, NATO and Arab nations persevered to protect Libyan civilians. So this is a momentous day in the history of Libya. The dark shadow of tyranny has been lifted, and with this enormous promise the Libyan people now have a great responsibility: to build an inclusive and tolerant and democratic Libya that stands as the ultimate rebuke to Gadhafi's dictatorship.
Barack ObamaThere's nothing noble or selfless about politicians and there never has been. Putting it charitably, Profiles in Courage is a compendium of Democratic mythology, ghostwritten for an ambitious young Massachusetts Senator who never did a thing for himself if he could pay to have it done by others.
L. Neil SmithThe marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?
Frederick DouglassDuring the Democratic presidential debate Howard Dean started off by apologizing to the crowd for having a cold. Then John Kerry apologized for once having a cold while serving his country in Vietnam.
Conan O'BrienOnce we recognize the power of propaganda, we need to ask whether its exercise is consistent with those democratic ideals to which lip-service is commonly accorded.
Randal MarlinIn Poland a man must be one thing: white or black, here or there, with us or against us -- clearly, openly, without hesitations. . . . We lack the liberal, democratic tradition rich in all its gradations. We have instead the tradition of struggle: the extreme situation, the final gesture.
Ryszard KapuscinskiImagine if the United States, in its war against Hitler, had said to Stalin: we don't want your support until you make your country democratic.
Natan SharanskyAll economic and political institutions are contrivances that should serve the interests of the people. When they fail to do so, they should be replaced by something more responsive, more just, and more democratic. Marx said this, and so did Jefferson. It is a revolutionary doctrine, and very much an American one.
Michael ParentiThe Constitution provides for one democratic moment, Judge, before a lifetime of judicial independence, when the people of the United States are entitled to know as much as we can about the person that we're about to entrust with safeguarding our future and the future of our kids.
Joe BidenThe Democratic Party opposes tax cuts but it cannot say so publicly. Thus, it is forced to support the idea of lowering the tax burden but using class warfare rhetoric to dispute the allocation of the relief.
Dick MorrisThe economic system that the United States has is an evil empire. It's an economic system that's not fair, not just, and it's not democratic. And it will fall just like communism fell. The richest 1 percent now own 50 percent of the wealth. It didn't use to be that way. The average CEO 20 years ago made 20 times as much as the average employee. Now they make 212 times as much.
Michael MooreMore often than not Democratic Law works to the advantage of the few even though the many have voted; this, of course, is because the few have told them how to vote.
Charles BukowskiCDU head Angela Merkel has tried for years to serve two sides: the conservative side by holding up her CDU party membership. But then at the same time she acts as though she were also a Social Democrat. I don't have this hydra-headed nature. In the end, people will vote for the Social Democratic original.
Martin SchulzIn building up a democratic model I think that Cuba's contribution, little by little, has contributed to getting closer to the ideals of those philosophers, of those Greeks who thought about how a society could be fairer, how a society could really represent the interests of the people. We have tried to get closer to that from a Latin-American perspective and from the Cuban perspective.
Alejandro Castro EspinThere's a big conservative press unabashedly and for the Democrats and even people to the left of the Democratic party, there's almost virtually no outlets that you can compare with the vast array of conservative press that's out there.
William J. ClintonIn every capitalist economy there are anti-capitalist movements, activists, and even political parties; in a way, that there are no longer anti-democratic movements, activists, and parties.
Geoff MulganIf we want more trade in the world, we should establish bilateral trade agreements with other democratic countries. That way we can control the decision-making process. The major economic countries of the world will enter into those agreements.
Dana RohrabacherSingapore and China, which don't want to encourage democratic citizenship, are expanding their humanities curricula. These reforms are all about developing a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Martha C. NussbaumA brilliant analysis of leadership in democratic, authoritarian, and totalitarian states, Archie Brown's The Myth of the Strong Leader draws on a remarkably wide range of examples and is distinguished by the relevance of its insights and by the precision and clarity of their exposition. It is an absorbing read that deserves to become a modern classic of political thinking.
Jack F. Matlock, Jr.Power is global and politics is local. That must change. We need a new language for understanding new global power formations as well as new international modes of politics to fight them. Social movements must move outside of national boundaries and join with others across the globe to fight the savagery of neoliberal global politics and central to such a task is the work of intellectuals, artists, cultural workers, and others who can fashion new tools and social movements in the fight against the current anti-democratic threats being imposed all over the globe.
Henry GirouxI don't think we should be engaged in nation-building. It's not our job to turn foreign nations into democratic utopias, to try to turn Iraq into Switzerland. It is the military's job to hunt down and kill our enemies, to kill ISIS before they murder American citizens and they wage jihad.
Ted CruzI grew up in a dictatorship, so I really appreciate democracy. I think democracy isn't just a random thing that's around - a democratic society needs the involvement of everybody.
Paul van DykAnd I think to be in NATO for the countries of our region, it means more guarantees for us, it means more responsibility for our common security, but it means fulfillment of all standards of civilized world, like protection of human rights and democratic mechanisms.
Aleksander KwasniewskiGood, healthy democratic societies are built on three pillars: there's peace and stability, economic development, and respect for rule of law and human rights. And where all three are present, you stand a very good chance of making a go of it.
Kofi AnnanThe closeness [of Rex Tillerson] to [Vladimir] Putin will be one of the unifying issues between the Republican critics and Democratic critics.
E. J. DionneEuropean and American companies companies do create jobs for some people but what they're mainly going to do is make an already wealthy elite wealthier, and increase its greed and strong desire to hang on to power. So immediately and in the long run, these companies - harm the democratic process a great deal.
Aung San Suu Kyi