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Quotations Database
16 years in the making, this 36,000 motivational quote search engine can identify quotations by the name of the author, keyword, gender, general ethnicity, and by phrase. It’s yours to use for free. I think it is the most diverse, deep, and far-reaching quotation search engine on values, ethics, and wisdom anywhere in the Milky Way galaxy. Enjoy! – Jason
And while our legal system often fails to provide justice for ordinary citizens who suffer at hands of the powerful, the problem has been turned upside down; many indentured politicians in Congress and state legislatures complain that ordinary citizens receive too much justice at the expense of corporations. The millions of Americans who decline to vote deprive themselves of their democratic birthright, and diminish our democracy. And a political system that rewards wealth with influence mocks the very notion of democracy and predictably produces the injustice of concentrated unaccountable power. President George W. Bush takes off on our Air Force One to California, spends nine hours in that state, and comes back with $5 million in campaign money. He is on his way to raising a historic record $200 million in private, mostly business money. This is the price for selling the U.S. government to these fat cats and top dogs. Quite a bargain for the rich and the super-rich, but not quite what Thomas Jefferson or James Madison had in mind. I have a theory of power: That if it’s going to be responsible, it has to have something to lose. “Bankruptcy reform” is a classic euphemism in a Congress addicted to misnomers. In reality, the legislation guts the Bankruptcy Code and, in effect, turns the bankruptcy courts into collection agencies for the biggest financial corporations, credit-card companies, car dealers, entertainment companies, and gambling casinos. Not only does the Attorney General’s program do damage to the very citizen rights that the nation has gone to war to protect in the past, but it seduces the public into believing that national security and adherence to our Constitution are incompatible. For too long, the agendas of the regulatory agencies, the Congress, and the Executive branch have been oriented to the care and feeding of the biggest financial corporations. Washington needs to be shamed into devoting just a fraction of its time, money, and muscle to shape a financial system that serves everyone, including the poor on a fair basis. The concentration of economic power in a few giant corporate structures has been the stimulus for many populist and progressive revolts in our nation’s history. Republicans authored the first federal antitrust law, the Sherman Act, in 1890. Teddy Roosevelt thundered against the “giant trusts.” Franklin D. Roosevelt assailed the “malefactors of great wealth.” The trustbusters of yesteryear would be shocked at what has occurred in the past 20 years. Calvin Coolidge famously declared that to the “business of America is business.” Surely, there are grander purposes of our collective life than a simple measuring of the gross national product. … If we take our Constitution and the founding ideals seriously, the business of America is democracy. The idea that real people and giant corporations have equal rights under our Constitution makes a mockery out of the principle of “equal justice under the law.” Just when many conditions seemed ripe for a progressive political movement, the likelihood is fading fast. Concentrated corporate power over our political economy and its control over peoples lives knows few boundaries. Normal sanctions do not adequately deter multinational companies that can obscure their culpability, escape jurisdictions or create their own parents (holding companies) and endless progeny (subsidiaries) to evade or avoid accountability. What communism could not do, the big business bosses are doing to the market system and the financial industry. We are witnessing the corporate destruction of capitalism in favor of a corporate state. The law can’t save it because the laws are controlled by politicians, many of whom are controlled in turn by these same business interests and campaign cash. For two generations the ever-expanding superior status of corporations has gone undiscussed in political realms. During that time, corporations and their attorneys rode roughshod over the ‘We the People’ preamble of the Constitution. Our charter of government never mentions the word ‘corporation.’ More of government, including military functions, is being corporatized despite recurring reports of rising waste, fraud and abuse. The idea that real people and giant corporations have equal rights under our Constitution makes a mockery out of the principle of ‘equal justice under the law.’ The FBI notes that both murder and robbery registered 8 percent drops since 1988. Missing from the FBI news release were any data on crime in the suites. That information vacuum is notable because corporate crime and violence are often the result of calculated, rational executive decision-makers – people who clearly could be deterred by stronger penalties and enforcement measures. Our country, so full of unapplied solutions, is gridlocked—stuck in traffic. Record levels of poverty, unemployment, home foreclosures, consumer debt and bankruptcies, and people lacking health insurance persist, yet corporate political power has not waned. If freedom is participation in power, as the ancient Roman orator Cicero defined it so well over two thousand years ago, it is time for the American people to engage each other in conversations concerning what to do about such control – for themselves, their freedom, and their democracy. In Congress, amongst the Republicans and corporate Democrats, the small progressive caucus of 83 members generates little political impact. Ironically, many of those progressive legislators are busy dialing for the same commercial campaign dollars. Television advertisements during the recent Olympics were high-priced, but one by McDonald’s reached a new low. It pictured a baby next to a parent with the message: ‘There will be a first step, a first word, and of course, a first French fry.’ Enough abuses have been documented. Enough power has been concentrated to shred our democratic processes and institutions. It is time to decisively shift power from the few to the many We don’t know the precise magnitude of corporate crime due to the curious absence of Justice Department data on such lawlessness, but there is reason to believe it is enormous. It’s time for corporate crime to be treated like street crime – as a dangerous affront to an organized, law-respecting society. …let the eternal words of the Roman, Marcus Cicero, be emblazoned for all to see: ‘Freedom is participation in power.’ For this aspiration places responsibility where it must always reside: on the shoulders, in the minds, and in the hearts of an empowered American people. Consumers can speak loudly in the marketplace and at the ballot box. They have the power to make corporations and politicians deliver. The concentration of economic power in a few giant corporate structures has been the stimulus for many populist and progressive revolts in our nation’s history. Republicans authored the first federal antitrust law, the Sherman Act, in 1890. Teddy Roosevelt thundered against the ‘giant trusts.’ Franklin D. Roosevelt assailed the ‘malefactors of great wealth.’ The trustbusters of yesteryear would be shocked at what has occurred in the past twenty years. It is obvious that our education system is in need of significant improvement, but standardized tests won’t help. In fact, they are sure to exacerbate the worst education tendencies toward rote memorization, bore students and turn them off to reading and intellectual engagement, and worsen racial disparities in the educational system. Calvin Coolidge famously declared that ‘the business of America is business.’ Surely, there are grander purposes of our collective life than a simple measuring of the gross national product. Step back for a moment and contemplate what corporate hucksters are doing to American childhood. Bypassing parents, these companies brazenly market directly to children, starting at age two. These marketeers (with the advice of the child psychologists on their payroll) wrap these youngsters in a commercial cocoon for an average of thirty hours a week. Some day, stark paybacks for campaign cash by lawmakers will be considered illegal bribery. The entire annual budget that nations have given to the World Health Organization amounts to what one, strategically outdated, B-2 bomber costs the Pentagon at a discount rate – just over 1 billion dollars. If ever there was a simple fix in terms of public policy, it’s the fuel efficiency of automobiles. Gas-guzzling vehicles pollute our air and contribute to a dependence on imported oil that distorts our foreign policy. Other nations spend between 6 and 10 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on health care while the United States spends 14 percent of its GDP on heath care, much of it going to insurance overhead, unnecessary (and often padded or fraudulent) billing and administrative costs, huge profits, and bloated executive salaries at large HMOs and other health care companies. If we take our Constitution and founding ideals seriously, the business of America is democracy. A well-functioning democracy requires diverse and vibrant media to ensure a ‘vigorous, robust, uninhibited democracy.’ It’s about whether we’re going to be able to look forward to our descendants and hand this world over to them in much better shape, so they will look back on us with kindness and with praise – rather than cursing us for our apathy, or our narcissism, or our refusal to stand up tall for justice and freedom in the world. The poor will be heard from someday in our country. The Republican and Democratic parties don’t represent the future, they represent the past. I think someday burning coal for electrical power will be a crime against humanity; it’s always been a crime against coal miners. Now only the American taxpayers and their creditworthiness inside a deficit-ridden government and a debt-loaded Federal Reserve stand in the way of a far bigger financial collapse than the stock market crash of 1929. Will it be done smartly this time around? Reckless, self-enriching capitalists get on your knees and thank the rescuing Washington socialists, for without them, you would surely be in chains. One day when I was about eight years old, my mother tossed one of her frequent ‘out of the blue’ questions at me: Bob Woodward relates in his new book, Bush at War, that the president admits to being a black-and-white person who makes decisions from his gut. A dubious enough personality type for a football coach, this trait raises serious concerns when embedded in the commander-in-chief of the most powerful arsenal on Earth. My parents prized the freedoms they found in America, and they were alert to anyone who might try to diminish them. At his sprawling restaurant on Main Street opposite the textile factories, my father would always speak his mind. He was a constant critic of power – big business, government, local and national – and readily offered solutions. More often than not, markets do need to be regulated. Sometimes, privatization has harmful consequences. Some matters should not be left to the market (like peoples’ right to education, health care, and clean water). Profits-before-patients is easily translated into corporate-dominated medicine. Greed and focus on stocks, stock options, and quarterly earnings rapidly degrade health care services. The deepening federal and state budget deficits are causing cuts that affect the most defenseless and least powerful of Americans. That, of course, is the direct consequence of plutocracy – rule by the wealthy. Their ownership and control of the nation’s private assets is growing while the poor and middle classes are losing. The latest figures show wealth inequality is growing in America and is the worst in the western world. Our forbearers established the government, and chose to delegate its daily operation to our representatives. We are the masters, and they are our servants. Their job is to do our bidding and, if they fail to do so adequately, we can and should replace them. A majority of Americans are opposed or skeptical about getting deeper into a bloody, costly fight in the mountains of central Asia while facing recession, unemployment, foreclosures, debt and deficits at home. Unfortunately, the modern corporation has come to infiltrate, and dominate, spheres of society once considered off-limits to commerce: elections, schools, health-care systems, media, prisons, and much more. Corporations subordinate public values to commercial properties. [Consider] 60,000 fatalities a year in our country related to workplace diseases and trauma. Or 250 fatalities a day due to hospital induced infections, or 100,000 fatalities a year due to hospital malpractice, or 45,000 fatalities a year due to the absence of health insurance to pay for treatment, or, or, or, even before we get into the economic poverty and deprivation. Any Obama national speeches on these casualties? There’s a vicious cycle at work. Corporations dominate our political process. Because of that dominance legislators enact pro-corporate laws which insure continued growth of corporations’ mega-wealth. The rich then pour dollars into their legislators’ campaigns. The rich get richer and richer and the politicians they rent or own get routinely reelected in more and more one-party dominated districts. And the public pays the price.
‘Ralph, do you love your country?’
‘Yes, mother,’ I said, wondering where she was going with this.
‘Well, I hope when you grow up, you’ll work hard to make it more lovable.’
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Today's Quote
…when we try to define [values and virtues], they get slippery; when we talk about their meaning, nothing stays put anymore, everything begins to move.
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