William Blum Quotes

• No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.

  William Blum

  Government, Matter, Imagine

  "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower". Book by William Blum, 2000.

  49 Copy quote

• The "trickle-down" theory: the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.

  William Blum

  Giving, Tables, Principles

  William Blum (2003). “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II”, p.20, Zed Books

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• From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.

  William Blum

  Crush, Country, Fighting

  33 Copy quote

• Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to.

  William Blum

  Compassion, People, Empathy

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• Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.

  William Blum

  Inspirational, Life, Democracy

  William Blum (2006). “Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower”, p.13, Zed Books

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• The de facto censorship which leaves so many Americans functionally illiterate about the history of US foreign affairs may be all the more effective because it is not official, heavy-handed or conspiratorial, but woven artlessly into the fabric of education and media. No conspiracy is needed.

  William Blum

  Media, Woven, Fabric

  William Blum (2003). “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II”, p.15, Zed Books

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• The questions they ask usually in the polls is: do you support the President's attempt to overthrow the government of Saddam Hussein? ... If you ask a question like: do you support the dropping of powerful explosives upon the heads of totally innocent men, women and children, demolishing their homes and their schools and their hospitals, are you in favour of that? That would change the answers, I think, quite a bit.

  William Blum

  Children, Powerful, Home

  "Peace activist comments on media coverage of the war". Interview with John HIghfield, www.abc.net.au. March 24, 2003.

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• A terrorist is someone who has a bomb, but doesn't have an air force.

  William Blum

  Air, Bombs, Force

  William Blum (2006). “Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower”, p.123, Zed Books

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• Terror is the poor man's war, war is the rich man's terror. Ultimately, all wars will end either in annihilation or at the negotiating table. (#) A terrorist is someone who has a bomb but can't afford an air force.

  William Blum

  War, Men, Air

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• The Soviet Union and something called communism per se had not been the object of Washington's global attacks. There had never been an International Communist Conspiracy. The enemy was, and remains, any government or movement, or even individual, that stands in the way of the expansion of the American Empire; by whatever name the US gives to the enemy - communist, rogue state, drug trafficker, terrorist.

  William Blum

  Government, Names, Giving

  William Blum (2003). “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II”, p.386, Zed Books

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• What our leaders and pundits never let slip is that the terrorists-whatever else they might be-might also be rational human beings ; which is to say that in their own minds they have a rational justification for their actions. Most terrorists are people deeply concerned by what they see as social, political, or religious injustice and hypocrisy, and the immediate grounds for their terrorism is often retaliation for an action of the United States.

  William Blum

  Religious, People, Hypocrisy

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• Do you remember the classic example of chutzpah? It's the young man who kills his parents and then asks the judge for mercy on the grounds that he's an orphan. The Bush administration's updated version of that was starting a wholly illegal, immoral, and devastating war and then dismissing all kinds of criticism of its action on the grounds that 'we're at war.

  William Blum

  War, Men, Judging

  William Blum (2014). “America's Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth about US Foreign Policy and Everything Else”, p.55, Zed Books Ltd.

  11 Copy quote

• Why don't church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics?

  William Blum

  Military, War, Abortion

  William Blum (2014). “America's Deadliest Export: Democracy – The Truth about US Foreign Policy and Everything Else”, p.170, Zed Books Ltd.

  10 Copy quote

• If love is blind, patriotism has lost all five senses.

  William Blum

  Love Is, Five Senses, Blind

  William Blum (2006). “Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower”, p.11, Zed Books

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• Change comes from a degree of discomfort that allows for and spurs thought and action.

  William Blum

  Spurs, Degrees, Action

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• The leaders of the empire, the imperial mafia-George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et al. ... are as fanatic and as fundamentalist as Osama bin Laden.

  William Blum

  Leader, Mafia, Empires

  8 Copy quote

• Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II

  William Blum

  Military, War, World

  William Blum (2006). “Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower”, p.162, Zed Books

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