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DEMOCRACY
"Democracy"
is one of the most important principles for a better
world. In its truest sense, a democracy is a community
in which all members have an equal say in the running
of that community. Unfortunately in reality, democratic
societies have fallen short of this ideal. Nevertheless,
because of its very nature, once a democracy is established,
its citizens can work together to make their society
more and more democratic, if they choose to do so.
-- Robert
Alan Silverstein
The
first and continuing argument for the curtailment
of working hours and the raising of the minimum age
was that education was necessary in a democracy and
working children could not attend school.
-- Grace
Abbott
*We
have learned to say that the good must be extended to
all of society before it can be held secure by any one
person or any one class. But we have not yet learned
to add to that statement, that unless all [people] and
all classes contribute to a good, we cannot even be
sure that it is worth having.
-- Jane
Addams
The
USA was founded in the name of democracy, equality and individual
freedom, but is failing to deliver the fundamental promise
of protecting rights for all.
-- Amnesty International
*"No
one is born a good citizen; no nation is born a
democracy. Rather, both are processes that continue
to evolve over a lifetime. Young people must be
included from birth. A society that cuts off from
its youth severs its lifeline."
-- Kofi
Annan
"Education
is a human right with immense power to transform.
On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom,
democracy and sustainable human development."
~ Kofi
Annan
*“If
liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly
to be found in democracy, they will be best attained
when all persons alike share in the government to the
utmost.”
-- Aristotle
...democracy
cannot survive overpopulation...
-- Isaac
Asimov
*So
long as we have enough people in this country willing
to fight for their rights, we'll be called a democracy.
-- Roger
Nash Baldwin
*Now
the first step has to be taken, the step towards democracy.
This step is full of risks, and requires trust on
all sides. We don't know where it will lead. But if
we just stand still, we will have no chance of escaping
the violence.
-- Daniel
Barenboim
At
the heart of the WTO is an assault on everything left
standing in the commons, in the public realm. Everything
is now for sale. Even those areas of life that we
once considered sacred like health and education,
food and water and air and seeds and genes and a heritage.
It is all now for sale. Economic freedom -- not democracy,
and not ecological stewardship -- is the defining
metaphor of the WTO and its central goal is humanity's
mastery of the natural world through its total commodification.
-- Maude
Barlow
*"Anti-democracy...is
a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody
to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant,
and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy
and freedom."
-- Harry
Belafonte
The
primal principle of democracy
is the worth and dignity of the individual.
-- Edward
Bellamy
*
Changing the structure and rules of the global economy
will require a mass movement based on messages of
compassion, justice, and equality, as well as collaborative
and democratic processes ... If we stay positive,
inclusive, and democratic, we have a truly historic
opportunity to build a global movement for social
justice.
-- Medea
Benjamin
*Democracy
is necessary to peace and to undermining the forces
of terrorism.
-- Benazir
Bhutto
Democracy
needs support and the best support for democracy comes
from other democracies. Democratic nations should
come together in an association designed to help each
other and promote what is a universal value -- democracy.
-- Benazir
Bhutto
Democracy
is the ultimate, positive revolution because it gives each
and every individual the power to control their lives. And
we can work together to create a just, sustainable world.
-- Bill Blackman
*Democracy
is an objective. Democratization is a process. Democratization
serves the cause of peace because it offers the possibility
of justice and of progressive change without force.
-- Boutros
Boutros-Ghali
*To
win the cause we all believe in, the spread of true
democracy all over the world, we need to win by example,
not just with speeches but by example; not just with
military might but by gaining the respect of the world.
-- Barbara
Boxer
"We
can have a democracy in this country or we can have great
wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot
have both."
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis
"The
only title in our democracy superior to that of President
is the title of citizen."
Justice Louis D. Brandeis
There
can be no real growth without healthy populations.
No sustainable development without tackling disease
and malnutrition. No international security without
assisting crisis-ridden countries. And no hope for
the spread of freedom, democracy and human dignity
unless we treat health as a basic human right.
-- Gro
Brundtland
Democracy
is not the law of the majority but the protection of the
minority.
-- Albert Camus
*Democracy
is not just a question of having a vote. It consists
of strengthening each citizen’s possibility and capacity
to participate in the deliberations involved in life
in society.
-- Fernando
Cardoso
It
is impossible to build enduring institutions without
solid values. For us, the fundamental value is that
associated with democracy.
-- Fernando
Cardoso
Let
us continue to strive together for a more inclusive,
democratic, and peaceful future for us all.
-- Fernando
Cardoso
...
the 20th century has been characterized by three developments
of great political importance: The growth of democracy,
the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate
propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against
democracy.
-- Alex Carey, Australian social scientist
There
is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as
the Free Public Library, this republic of letters,
where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the
slightest consideration.
~ Andrew
Carnegie
*
Everybody
counts in applying democracy. And there will never
be a true democracy until every responsible and
law-abiding adult in it, without regard to race,
sex, color or creed has his or her own inalienable
and unpurchasable voice in government.
-- Carrie
Chapman Catt
*The
road to democracy may be winding and is like a river
taking many curves, but eventually the river will
reach the ocean.
-- Chen
Shui-bian
*
The
real world of American society is one which it is
very misleading to call simply a democracy. Of course,
it is in a sense a democracy, but it is one in which
there are enormous inequities in the distribution
of power and force. For example, the entire commercial
and industrial system is in principle excluded from
the democratic process, including everything that
goes on within it -- Noam
Chomsky
*under
capitalism, we can't have democracy by definition.
Capitalism is a system in which the central institutions
of society are in principle under autocratic control.
--
Noam
Chomsky
In
this possibly terminal phase of human existence,
democracy and freedom are more than just ideals
to be valued - they may be essential to survival.
-- Noam
Chomsky
The
most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer
decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions:
kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party
dictatorships, or modern corporations.
-- Noam
Chomsky
Representative
democracy, as in, say, the United States or Great Britain,
would be criticized by an anarchist of this school on two
grounds. First of all because there is a monopoly of power
centralized in the State, and secondly -and critically -
because representative democracy is limited to the political
sphere and in no serious way encroaches on the economic
sphere. Anarchists of this tradition have always held that
democratic control of one's productive life is at the core
of any serious human liberation, or, for that matter, of
any significant democratic practice. That is, as long as
individuals are compelled to rent themselves on the market
to those who are willing to hire them, as long as their
role in production is simply that of ancillary tools, then
there are striking elements of coercion and oppression that
make talk of democracy very limited, if even meaningful.
-- Noam
Chomsky
*"Democracy
is just a word. You have to give it meaning. The US
is not a democracy. Most Americans do not vote. We haven't
had a real choice for a long, long time now. Wealth
rules. Corporations rule. The US is a plutocracy --
government by wealthy people. Certain people control
multinational corporations. You couldn't get elected
in the US without lots of money."
-- Ramsey
Clark
"If
our modern world should be able to recapture this power,
the earth's natural resources and web of life would not
be irrevocably wasted within the Twentieth century…..True
democracy founded in neighborhoods and reaching over the
world become the realized heaven on earth. And living peace,
not just an interlude between wars, would be born and would
last through the ages." -- John Collier
*
“In
a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate
power but carries the ultimate responsibility.”
-- Norman
Cousins
*
I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy
to have competition in the media, a lot of competition,
and we seem to be moving away from that.
-- Walter
Cronkite
It
seems to rise again when the crisis times come, and
this is a time of most severe crisis, as we all know,
not just for the history of the United States and
the survival indeed of our democracy, but for the
future peace of the world. And never before probably
has the need for interfaith commitment been nearly
as great as it is at this very moment.
-- Walter
Cronkite
*
We
have a global economy that is not structured around
democratizing and including people in the decision-making.
It's operated in secret.
-- Kevin
Danaher
it
is necessary to stay on the march, to be on the journey,
to work for peace wherever we are at all times, because
the liberty we cherish, which we would share with the
world, demands eternal vigilance. And democracy is no
easy path, but those of us who believe in it must be
prepared to sacrifice in its cause more willingly than
those who are prepared to die in the wars of aggression.
We, too, must be dedicated to the cause of freedom.
-- Ossie
Davis
When
great changes occur in history, when great principles
are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The
minority are right.
-- Eugene
V. Debs
The
aim of education is to enable individuals to continue
their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning
is continued capacity for growth. Now this idea cannot
be applied to all the members of a society except where
intercourse of man with man is mutual, and except where
there is adequate provision for the reconstruction of
social habits and institutions by means of wide stimulation
arising from equitably distributed interests. And this
means a democratic society.
-- John
Dewey
*
Democracy
doesn't recognize east or west; democracy is simply
people's will. Therefore, I do not acknowledge that
there are various models of democracy; there is just
democracy itself.
-- Shirin
Ebadi
*
…
we believe in the vocation of communion and participation
of our people, who day to day awaken to their political
conscience and express their desire for change and
profound democratization of society. A change based
on justice, built with love, and which will bring
us the most anxiously desired fruits of peace.
-- Adolfo
Perez Esquivel
The
idea of allowing corporations to have unlimited influence
on our democracy is very dangerous, obviously.
-- Russ
Feingold
*
I
understand democracy as something that gives the
weak the same chance as the strong.
-- Mohandas
K. Gandhi
To
safeguard democracy the people must have a keen
sense of independence, self-respect, and their oneness.
-- Mohandas
Gandhi
In
true democracy every man and women is taught to
think for himself or herself. -- Mohandas
Gandhi
The spirit of democracy cannot be established in
the midst of terrorism, whether governmental or
popular.
-- Mohandas
Gandhi
The
spirit of democracy cannot be imposed from without.
It has to come from within.
-- Mohandas
Gandhi
"What
does it matter to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless
whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of
totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
-- Mohandas
Gandhi
*
"You
cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it."
~ Akbar
Ganji
When
there is a crisis, the first thing that gets damaged
and gets harmed is democracy.
~ Akbar
Ganji
*
The
modern infrastructures that exists in the world all
contribute to the advancement of human rights and
democracy.
~ Akbar
Ganji
*
Ultimately,
I believe -- because energy is so central to our lives
-- that a common global project to rewire the world
with clean energy could be the first step on a path
to global peace and global democracy -- even in today's
deeply troubled world.
-- Ross
Gelbspan
"The
citizens of Love Canal provided an example of how
a blue-collar community with few resources can win
against great odds (a multi-billion-dollar international
corporation and an unresponsive government), using
the power of the people in our democratic system."
~ Lois
Gibbs
"The
freedom and human capacities of individuals must be developed
to their maximum but individual powers must be linked to
democracy in the sense that social betterment must be the
necessary consequence of individual flourishing."
-- Henry Giroux
*
The media is absolutely essential to the functioning
of a democracy. It's not our job to cozy up to power.
We're supposed to be the check and balance on government.
-- Amy
Goodman
*
Freedom
means to build a democratic system enshrined with
the respect for fundamental rights of Man, of the
human being, of the individuals.
-- Xanana
Gusmão
Think
of the millions of young men who died fighting for
democracy. We spit on their graves when we let democracy
slip away into the sewer of illegal money." -- Doris
Haddock (Granny D)
We should
know that only replacing the economics of competition and
greed with the economics of equitable cooperation will guarantee
a globalization that takes advantage of potential efficiency
gains in ways that also promote environmental protection,
international equity, economic democracy, and variety.
-- Robin Hahnel
We
should insist that governments receiving American aid live
up to standards of accountability and transparency, and
we should support countries that embrace market reforms,
democracy, and the rule of law.
-- Lee H. Hamilton
“We
need to be activating deep democracy because democracy is
fleeting through our fingers, and most people are unaware
of it. Democracy is about dispersing power among the interconnected
people. As a people, we need to rise to the level of forcing
our leaders to abide by our stated principles - really exercise
democracy, not only on our behalf but on behalf of the world.
We need to continue, as part and parcel of the American
experience created by the founding forefathers, and now
the foremothers, to insist, "We want democracy to work,
and that means every voice counts."
-- Dr. Azizah al-Hibri
Democracy
is not something you believe in or a place to hang your
hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you
stop doing it, democracy crumbles.
-- Abbie Hoffman
"If
you look back in history, you will find the core mission
of public education in America was to create places of civic
virtue for our children and for our society. As education
undergoes the rigors of re-examination and the need for
reinvention, it is cruicial to remember that the key role
of public schools is to preserve democracy and, that as
battered as we might be, our mission is central to the future
of this county."
-- Paul D. Houston, Executive director of the American Association
of School Administrators
"A
generation that acquires knowledge without ever understanding
how that knowledge can benefit the community is a generation
that is not learning what it means to be citizens in a democracy."
-- Elizabeth L. Hollander (1817-1885)
*
We
can enhance democracy by making it in line with its
original vision. Read the dollar bill - E pluribus unum,
out of many, one; novus ordo seclorum, a new order of
the ages. That's democracy.
-- Barbara
Marx Hubbard
"America
is a country ready to be taken—in fact, longing to
be taken—by political leaders ready to restore democracy
and trust to the political process."
-- Arianna
Huffington
*
I
swear to the Lord
I still can't see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.
-- Langston
Hughes
*
"Full
democracy requires the full participation of women.
Your voices are vital. The word 'vital' means necessary
for life. A democracy, to be fully alive, must include
all its citizens."
-- Swanee
Hunt
*
The
death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination
from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy,
indifference, and undernourishment.
-- Robert
Maynard Hutchins
*
“All
democracies are based on the proposition that power
is very dangerous and that it is extremely important
not to let any one person or small group have too much
power for too long a time”
~ Aldous
Huxley
*
The thing about democracy, beloveds, is that it is
not neat, orderly, or quiet. It requires a certain
relish for confusion. -- Molly
Ivins
*
Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul
of our democracy.
-- Jesse
Jackson
*
Since an informed citizenry is the basis for a healthy
democracy, independent, non-corporate media are more
crucial today than ever before
-- Dahr
Jamail
*
“All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle,
that though the will of the majority is in all cases
to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable;
that the minority possess their equal rights, which
equal laws must protect, and to violate would be
oppression.”
-- Thomas
Jefferson
I
know of no safe repository of the ultimate power
of society but people. And if we think them not
enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the
power from them, but to inform them by education.
-- Thomas
Jefferson
It is
my principle that the will of the majority should always
prevail.
-- Thomas
Jefferson
Whenever
the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their
own government.
-- Thomas
Jefferson
The
lesson of history is clear: democracy always wins
in the end.
-- Marjorie
Kelly
*
if we wish to accomplish in the next 15 years what
we failed to accomplish in the last 15, we would
do well to focus on democratizing structures of
power. That means imagining, and then creating,
economic democracy.
-- Marjorie
Kelly
Democracy
is about two things. First, it is about purpose. In the
political realm, it's about an overriding concern for the
common good. In the economic realm, it's about having the
common good trump the narrow self-interest of the financial
elite. It's about broadening corporate purpose from serving
shareholders to serving stakeholders, and releasing executives
from the destructive mandate to maximize shareholder gain
at any cost. Second, democracy is about structures that
bring this purpose to life. It's not about separating good
corporations from bad, but about shaping the system forces
that act on all corporations. It's about consciously crafting
new democratic system structures, structures of voice, structures
of decision making, structures of conflict resolution, structures
of accountability.
-- Marjorie
Kelly
We are
experiencing a unique convergence of forces, not only the
forces of scandal, but the forces of change. We can use
this moment to take corporate social responsibility to the
next level, the level of economic democracy. We can become
a new founding generation, completing the design in the
economic realm that our forefathers began in the political
realm. Instead of chasing one form of corporate wrongdoing
at a time, we can put in place enduring structures of justice,
effective structures of checks and balances. For it is only
in this way that we can truly safeguard the common good,
not only for today, but for generation after generation
to come.
-- Marjorie
Kelly
*
"The vision I see is not only a movement of direct
democracy, of self- and co-determination and non-violence,
but a movement in which politics means the power to
love and the power to feel united on the spaceship
Earth... In a world struggling in violence and dishonesty,
the further development of non-violence - not only
as a philosophy but as a way of life, as a force on
the streets, in the market squares, outside the missile
bases, inside the chemical plants and inside the war
industry - becomes one of the most urgent priorities."
-- Petra
Kelly
*
We are not afraid to entrust the American people
with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies,
and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid
to let its people judge the truth and falsehood
in an open market is a nation that is afraid of
its people.
-- John
F. Kennedy
Our
labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups.
They have raised wages, shortened hours, and provided
supplemental benefits. Through collective bargaining
and grievance procedures, they have brought justice
and democracy to the shop floor.
-- John
F. Kennedy
"America
now stands as the world's foremost power. We should be proud:
Not since the age of the Romans have one people achieved
such preeminence. But we are not Romans; we do not seek
an empire. We are Americans, trustees of a vision and a
heritage
that commit us to the values of democracy and the universal
cause of human rights."
-- Senator John Kerry
*
"Democracy is the absolute value that makes for
human dignity, as well as the only road to sustained
economic development and social justice."
-- Kim
Dae-jung
*
the anti-war movement should turn itself into a pro-democracy
movement
-- Naomi
Klein
Students
should not only be trained to live in a democracy when they
grow up; they should have the chance to live in one today.
-- Alfie Kohn
The
proper goal of an economic democracy agenda is to
replace the global suicide economy ruled by rapacious
and unaccountable global corporations with a planetary
system of local living economies comprised of human-scale
enterprise rooted in the communities they serve and
locally owned by the people whose wellbeing depends
on them.
-- David
Korten
*
"The ideas and principles of democracy should
not be limited to politics, but must pervade all areas
of social life."
-- Bruno
Kreisky
“I believe
in a relatively equal society, supported by institutions
that limit extremes of wealth and poverty. I believe in
democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law. That makes
me a liberal, and I’m proud of it."
-- Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize-winning economist)
We,
as citizens or members of people's organisations,
can preserve and nourish basic principles needed for
long-term efforts aimed at transforming a totalitarian
and war-torn society into a democratic one."
-- Katarina
Kruhonja
*
freedom
rings resoundingly in a democracy each time we speak
freely.
-- Dennis
Kucinich
*
Some believe that the only way to remove the authoritarian
regime and replace it with a democratic one is through
violent means. I would like to set the precedent of
political change through political settlement, not through
violence.
-- Aung
San Suu Kyi
*
"No society has fulfilled its democratic promise if
people go hungry... If some go without food they have
surely been deprived of all power. The existence of
hunger belies the existence of democracy."
--
Frances
Moore Lappe
*
We’ve come a long way, but we still have a distance
to go before all of our citizens embrace the idea
of a truly interracial democracy, what I like to call
the Beloved Community, a nation at peace with itself.
-- John
R. Lewis
*
“We want harmonious development, ... We should work
together for more democratic and law-based international
relations, and a harmonious environment in which countries
respect one another, treat one another as equals,
and different cultures can emulate and interchange
with each other.”
-- Li
Zhaoxing
*
“Democracy
is the government of the people, by the people, for
the people”
-- Abraham
Lincoln
*
Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom
of press and assembly, without a free struggle of
opinion, life dies out in every public institution,
becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the
bureaucracy remains as the active element.
-- Rosa
Luxemburg
*
We need now to build a culture of geniune nonviolence
and real democracy.
-- Mairead
Corrigan Maguire
"Democracy
is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that
a nation must be doing."
-- Archibald MacLeish, American poet, public official (1892-1982)
"I
have tremendous confidence in the capacity of the poor
to transform not only their own lives but also to build
a just, humane, and democratic society."
-- Ruth
Manorama
*
"Democracy is the most demanding of all forms of government
in terms of the energy, imagination, and public spirit
required of the individual."
-- George
C. Marshall (1880-1959)
"America:
Socializing the risks, Privatizing the profits, Putting
business in the democracy, Taking the democracy out of the
business."
-- Christopher Masterjohn
*
Ensuring the access of all citizens to government information
and to essential information for human development is
a must for every democratic society.
-- Koïchiro
Matsuura, UNESCO Director-General
Dictatorships
are one-way streets. Democracy boasts twox-way traffic.
-- Albert Moravia
*
We
must construct a new set of values and attitudes to
replace the culture of war which, for centuries, has
been influencing the course of civilization. Winning
peace means the triumph of our pledge to establish,
on a democratic basis, a new social framework of tolerance
and generosity from which no one will feel excluded.
-- Federico
Mayor
*
"One
cannot have a trade union or a democratic election without
freedom of speech, freedom of association and assembly.
Without a democratic election, whereby people choose
and remove their rulers, there is no method of securing
human rights against the state. No democracy without
human rights, no human rights without democracy, and
no trade union rights without either. That is our belief;
that is our creed."
-- George
Meany
*
"Peace cannot exist without justice, justice cannot
exist without fairness, fairness cannot exist without
development, development cannot exist without democracy,
democracy cannot exist without respect for the identity
and worth of cultures and peoples."
-- Rigoberta
Menchu
I
don't accept armed struggle. Maybe it was the way
in the '50s and '60s, but we want a democratic revolution...
-- Evo
Morales
You
can't have a people's democracy as long as corporations
are considered people. -- Bill
Moyers
*
The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism
are deeply entwined. -- Bill
Moyers
“I
believe democracy requires a ‘sacred contract’ between
journalists and those who put their trust in us to
tell them what we can about how the world really works.”
-- Bill
Moyers
But
there is nothing idealized or romantic about the difference
between a society whose arrangements roughly serve all its
citizens (something otherwise known as social justice) and
one whose institutions have been converted into a stupendous
fraud. That can be the difference between democracy and
plutocracy. -- Bill
Moyers
The
Interfaith Alliance has to become an ongoing sustaining
and powerful movement whose interest is to prove that religion
has a healing side as well as a killing side, and that democracy
is the consequence of conscience
-- Bill
Moyers
An unconscious
people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan
information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people
made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food
of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions
and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too
many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.
-- Bill
Moyers
"Neither
democracy nor effective representation is possible until
each participant in the group...devotes a measurable part
of his life to furthering its existence."
-- Lewis Mumford, American social philosopher (1895-1990)
*
The survival of democracy depends on the renunciation
of violence and the development of nonviolent means
to combat evil and advance the good.
-- A.
J. Muste
There
can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship.
-- Ralph
Nader
*
The essence of globalization is a subordination of
human rights, of labor rights, consumer, environmental
rights, democracy rights, to the imperatives of global
trade and investment.
-- Ralph
Nader
”Man's
capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's
inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
-- Reinhold Niebuhr
*
I always believe that ultimately, if people are paying
attention, then we get good government and good leadership.
And when we get lazy, as a democracy and civically
start taking shortcuts, then it results in bad government
and politics.
-- Barack
Obama
*
"This
leads to a question -- if a great many people are
for a certain project, is it necessarily right? If
the vast majority is for it, is it even more certainly
right? This, to be sure, is one of the tricky points
of democracy. The minority often turns out to be right,
and though one believes in the efficacy of the democratic
process, one has also to recognize that the demand
of the many for a particular project at a particular
time may mean only disaster."
-- Frances
Perkins
*
"A
community is democratic only when the humblest and
weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic,
and social rights that the biggest and most powerful
possess."
-- A.
Philip Randolph
"'If
democracy and self-rule are the fundamentals, then why should
people give up these rights when they enter their workplace?
In politics we fight like tigers for freedom, for the right
to elect our leaders, for freedom of movement, choice of
residence, choice of what work to pursue - control of our
lives, in short. And then we wake up in the morning and
go to work, and all those rights disappear. We no longer
insist on them. And so for most of the day we return to
feudalism. That is what capitalism is - a version of feudalism
in which capital replaces land, and business leaders replace
kings. But the hierarchy remains. And so we still hand over
our lives' labor, under duress, to feed rulers who do no
real work.... 'So. We must challenge. It is time. If self-rule
is a fundamental value, if simple justice is a value, then
they are values everywhere, including in the workplace where
we spend so much of our lives'...."
-- Kim Stanley Robinson
*
“The motivating force of the theory of a Democratic
way of life is still a belief that as individuals we
live cooperatively, and, to the best of our ability,
serve the community in which we live..."
-- Eleanor
Roosevelt
*
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people
tolerate the growth of private power to a point where
it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself.
That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government
by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling
private power. Among us today a concentration of private
power without equal in history is growing." -- Franklin
D. Roosevelt
The
only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government
strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and
a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain
its sovereign control over the government.
-- Franklin
D. Roosevelt
*
“A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon
cease to be a great democracy”
-- Theodore
Roosevelt
Our
civilization is locked in the grip of an ideology - corporatism.
An ideology that denies and undermines the legitimacy
of individuals as the citizen in a democracy. The particular
imbalance of this ideology leads to a worship of self-interest
and a denial of the public good. The practical effects
on the individual are passivity and conformism in the
areas that matter, and non-conformism in the areas that
don't
-- John Ralston Saul
*
The spread of democracy is a wonderful thing—it is
a necessary foundation for peace—and it can happen.
But it cannot be advanced by force, and still less
by the creation of a new empire, an idea that is as
unworkable as it morally mistaken. Empire, the embodiment
of force, violates equity on a global scale. No lover
of freedom can give it support. It is especially contrary
to the founding principles of the United States.
-- Jonathan
Schell
*
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed
no better than we deserve.
-- George
Bernard Shaw
We
must add our voices to those who cry out that there
is a standard below which we will not allow human
beings to live, and that that standard is not at the
freezing nor starving point....In a democracy all
are responsible.
-- Hannah
Solomon
*
Most of the poverty and misery in the world is due
to bad government, lack of democracy, weak states,
internal strife, and so on.
-- George
Soros
We
can no longer allow multi-nationalists to parade as agents
of progress and democracy in the newspapers, even as they
subvert it at the workplace.
—John Sweeney
Democracy
and capitalism have very different beliefs about the proper
distribution of power. One believes in a completely equal
distribution of political power, 'one man, one vote',
while the other believes that it is the duty of the economically
fit to drive the unfit out of business and into economic
extinction. 'Survival of the fittest' and inequalities
in purchasing power is what capitalist efficiency is all
about. Individuals and firms become efficient to be rich.
To put it in its starkest form, capitalism is perfectly
compatible with slavery. The American South had such a
system for more than two centuries. Democracy is not comparable
with slavery.
-- Lester Thurow
The
surface of American society is covered with a layer of
democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the
old aristocratic colours breaking through.
-- Alexis De Tocqueville
*
Democracy is constructed like an edifice, freedom
by freedom, right by right, until it reaches its snapping
point.
-- Abdoulaye
Wade
*
Democratic principles are the result of equality
of condition.
-- Mercy
Otis Warren
*
"You cannot have peace without human rights, democracy,
gender equality, and clean water. Look to the root
causes of war and you will find, in their reverse,
the root foundations of peace."
-- Cora
Weiss
*
As free citizens in a political democracy, we have
a responsibility to be interested and involved in
the affairs of the human community, be it at the
local or the global level.
-- Paul
Wellstone
“There
are three critical ingredients to democratic renewal
and progressive change in America: good public policy,
grassroots organizing and electoral politics.”
-- Paul
Wellstone
Education
and democracy have the same goal: the fullest possible
development of human capabilities.
-- Paul
Wellstone
*
Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some
it comes close to being the only formal religion
they have.
~ E.
B. White
I
still have great faith in democracy. I have great
belief in the power of community.
~
Terry
Tempest Williams
*
The human heart is the first home of democracy.
It is where we embrace our questions: Can we be
equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with
our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer
our attention rather than our opinion? And do we
have enough resolve in our hearts to act courageously,
relentlessly, without giving up, trusting our fellow
citizens to join us in our determined pursuit—a
living democracy?
~
Terry
Tempest Williams
We
have to speak out now on behalf of our community and on
behalf of the land and say they're the same thing and
say "No, we are not rolling over" and "No, this is not
a corporate enterprise." This is democracy in the fullest
sense and we must have regard and reverence and those
are the cornerstones of a just society.
~ Terry
Tempest Williams
I
feel like we are at a time of great creativity if we choose
to embrace it as such, if we choose to engage the will
of our imaginations and imagine another way of being in
the world. Democracy requires our participation. The land
trust movement in this country is a beautiful example
of how we can find hope within our own communities because
it bypasses government and creates a diverse and truly
bipartisan conversation on behalf of the land. We dare
to define community to include all life—rocks, rivers,
plants, and animals, alongside human beings. Whether it
is the Castle Rock Collaboration in the red rock desert
of southern Utah or the Blue Hill Heritage Trust in coastal
Maine, these small groups made up of neighbors and friends
from all walks of life are having an extraordinary influence
on our creation of an ethic of place. I believe radical
change occurs through the care of our relationships.
~ Terry
Tempest Williams
*
"The whole purpose of democracy is that we may hold
counsel with one another, so as not to depend upon
the understanding of one man." -- Woodrow
Wilson
In
our so-called democracy we are accustomed to give
the majority what they want rather than educate
them to understand what is best for them.
~Carter
Woodson
A free America... means just this: individual
freedom for all, rich or poor, or else this system
of government we call democracy is only an expedient
to enslave man to the machine and make him like
it.
-- Frank
Lloyd Wright
*
I
have defended democracy, human rights, and brotherhood
between peoples. And I’ll keep doing so for as long
as I live.
-- Leyla
Zana
