Tag: Quotes

Israel

Patrick Lawrence: Israel Runs the U.S. No, the U.S. Runs Israel. No, Wait


This brings us to the question Netanyahu’s speech forces upon us. Does the U.S. control Israel or does Israel control the U.S.? Is the apartheid state another of Washington’s client regimes, albeit — let’s borrow a little from the Chinese — a client with Zionist characteristics? Or is Israel a case — rare, if not unique — of a distant outpost that dictates to the imperial center? The periphery exercises power over the metropole, this to say: This would have to be something new under the sun, surely. 

The immediate answer, perhaps obvious, is the terrorist at the podium. It cannot be lost on anyone paying attention that more or less every member of Congress in attendance — and good on the 100 or so members who boycotted — has in the past taken and continues to take money from the Israel lobby, notably but not only the profoundly antidemocratic American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the infamous AIPAC.

Netanyahu knew this. He spoke to some people who genuinely believe in the Zionist cause and some people concerned with the imperium’s geopolitical position in the Middle East. Some and some, O.K. But everybody he addressed, allowing for exceptions, was on the take from AIPAC. Thomas Massie, the libertarian Republican from Kentucky and one of the exceptions, told us just how AIPAC works — a combination of bribes, threats, and coercion — in quite unbelievable detail when Tucker Carlson interviewed him on these subjects a couple of months ago.  

Patrick Lawrence: Israel Runs the U.S. No, the U.S. Runs Israel. No, Wait

Israel, Israel Crimes

Netanyahu
Geoffrey Robertson
Geoffrey Robertson

Human rights barrister

Let’s be clear, Peter Dutton: prosecuting Netanyahu is not antisemitism

Israelis protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and call for a deal to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.
Israelis protest in Tel Aviv on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and call for a deal to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.Credit: Getty Images

As everyone who uses the word should know, antisemitism means hatred of Jewish people in general, and it is the vilest and most destructive form of race hatred. It is not constituted by condemning the policy or the war tactics of the Israeli government. Dutton’s attempt to conflate the two, and his call on the Australian government to withhold support from an independent international justice process, is shameful.
And history would note the irony that a law forged at Nuremberg to prevent repetition of the sufferings of millions of Jewish people was, 77 years later, dodged and despised by none other than the leader of Israel.

Humour

I Heart Intelligence 22 Amazing Quotes from The Master of Sarcasm: George Carlin

 

George Carlin

I Heart Intelligence 22 Amazing Quotes from The Master of Sarcasm: George Carlin.

Humour

22 Amazing Quotes from The Master of Sarcasm: George Carlin

George Carlin

Comedy can often be a sword and a shield. George Carlin is one of the few comics that comes to mind when I think of a comedian who could make a point about a touchy subject, and make you laugh at the same time. Carlin had the verbal skill to have you laughing one minute, and the next minute drop an insightful message. George Carlin was a comedian who practically defined the word “edgy”. His material was often political and he was well known for pointing out hypocrisies which earned him the title “Master of Sociological Comedy”. Very few people have had the ability to say the things that need to be said in a way that makes you think and laugh like Carlin could. Carlin’s observations on life, people, politics, and religion will certainly be missed.

22 Brilliant Quotes from George Carlin:

“But when you’re in front of an audience and you make them laugh at a new idea, you’re guiding the whole being for the moment. No one is ever more him/herself than when they really laugh. Their defenses are down. It’s very Zen-like, that moment. They are completely open, completely themselves when that message hits the brain and the laugh begins. That’s when new ideas can be implanted. If a new idea slips in at that moment, it has a chance to grow.”

“If a man smiles all the time, he’s probably selling something that doesn’t work.”

“I don’t like ass kissers, flag wavers or team players. I like people who buck the system. Individualists. I often warn people: “Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you: ‘There is no “I” in team.’ What you should tell them is: ‘Maybe not. But there is an “I” in independence, individuality, and integrity.’”

“I do this real moron thing, and it’s called thinking. And apparently I’m not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions.”

“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. … These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.”

“May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.”

“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What’s that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first; get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating …and you finish off as an orgasm.”

“I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in the concrete. It’s so fuckin’ heroic.”

“Religion is like a pair of shoes…..Find one that fits for you, but don’t make me wear your shoes.”

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”

“Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money!”

“Life gets really simple once you cut out all the bull shit they teach you in school.”

“How come when it’s us, it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken, it’s an omelette?”

“Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. “

“Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car.”

“People who see life as anything more than pure entertainment are missing the point.”

“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

“Oh Beautiful for smoggy skies, insecticide grain, for strip-mined mountain’s majesty above the asphalt plain. America, America, man sheds his waste on thee, and hides the pines with billboard signs, from sea to oily sea.”

“Everyone smiles in the same language.”

“We are a nation of sheep, and someone else owns the grass.”

“There’s a humorous side to every situation. The challenge is to find it.”

“This is a little prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this: Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation but deliver us from the twilight’s last gleaming. Amen and Awomen. ”

Politics

Tony – In His Own Words Or I Never Realised How Many Things I Agree With!

Image from Facebook.com

  • January 15, 2015
  • Written by:
  • This morning I started looking for a quote from Tony Abbott for this piece. Surprisingly, I came across many, many statements from him with which I wholeheartedly agree.For example, “The great thing about the Coalition is you know exactly what you will get from the Coalition.”

    Yep, he was pretty right on that one. I pretty much did know exactly what we’d get from the Coaltion…

    And then I read the following:

    “Let me just say of this government that it’s broken promises; that’s bad.”

    “It’s the government that is faking things, fudging things and ultimately trying to deceive people.

    “It’s my job between now and polling day to remind the Australian people just what a hopeless, unreliable, untrustworthy, dishonest, deceptive Government this has been. It just doesn’t get democracy.”

    “A fake. An absolute fake, from start to finish.”

    Unfortunately when I checked the dates, they were all made before the election and I realised that he wasn’t talking about his own government.

    But I did find one interesting one made after the election.

    TONY ABBOTT: “I think Christopher said ‘schools’ – plural – will get the same amount of money. The quantum will be the same.”

    ANDREW BOLT: “I hear that. ‘Schools’, plural. People just saw the grab. They heard ‘school’, your ‘school’, singular, and I don’t understand why that promise was made. I would go a billion dollars into debt just to keep your promise. I don’t know why you don’t commit to it.”

    TONY ABBOTT: “But Andrew, we are going to keep our promise. We are going to keep the promise that we actually made, not the promise that some people thought that we made or the promise that some people might have liked us to make. We’re going to keep the promise that we actually made.”

    Which sounds fine, excerpt the promise to which he was referring was this:

    Christopher Pyne: “You can vote Liberal or Labor and you will get exactly the same amount of funding for your school.” 2 August 2013

    So that infamous “We are going to keep the promise that we actually made, not the promise that some people thought that we made or the promise that some people might have liked us to make,” should have actually read, “We’re keeping the promise I thought we made not the one we actually made.”

    Which some pedantic people are sure to argue is the same thing as not keeping a promise at all, but, as Abe Lincoln said, you can’t please all of the people all of the time… Or was that “fool”?

    Whatever, after Labor’s “back-flip” on the $20 Medicare cut, Mr Abbott cut short his holiday to do an interview. (By the way, Labor has apparently changed its mind because Shorten said that he’d “consider” the change… I can see how this can be considered a back-flip by the Liberals because when they say they’ll consider something – or pay one of their mates to hold an inquiry into the best course of action – they’ve already made up their mind!) And what started my search was this little snippet from Mr Abbott:

    He called on his critics to provide their own budget savings if they continued to reject the government’s attempts to restore the budget to surplus and pay down the debt.

    “We are serious about economic reform, we are serious about budget responsibility – is the Senate? That is the question; are they serious about economic reform and budget responsibility and if they don’t like what this governments doing tell us what their alternative is,” he said.

    Now, I could be wrong, but I seem to remember that when he was Leader of the Opposition that he said something about Oppositions:

    Oppositions are not there to get legislation through. Oppositions are there to hold the government to account. And unless we are confident that a piece of legislation is beyond reasonable doubt in the national interest, it is our duty as the Opposition to vote it down.

    I also seem to remember that he said that it wasn’t his job as Opposition Leader to come up with ideas for the Government, but I can’t find any actual quote. As soon as you put in anything for a Google search for an Abbott quote, all you get is stuff about climate change being crap, or a paid parental leave scheme being introduced over his dead body, or a bad boss being like a bad father, or virginity, or “the phrase WorkChoices being dead and buried”, so it’s been a long, depressing search.

    Although I did find quite a few about not being afraid of a Double Dissolution, and, if the Senate held up necessary legislation, then they’d go to the people straight away. But maybe that was another one where we only thought we heard something, when what he really said was: “I’m going to cling onto being Prime Minister as long as I can because there’s no way that I’d survive an election campaign as Leader”

Abbott

20 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister

20 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime MinisterPosted on August 23, 2012 by Liam Carswell

via 20 Quotes From Tony Abbott to Remind You Why He Shouldn’t Be Prime Minister.

The Government

Tony Abbott Village Idiot

ABC

He turned this country from inward looking stagnant to progressive. A fairer place for having done so. “It’s Time Again”

gough whitlam with mic

Ladies and gentlemen, well may we say ‘God Save the Queen’, because nothing will save the Governor-General. The proclamation you have just heard was countersigned Malcolm Fraser, who will go down in history as Kerr’s cur.

Maintain your rage and enthusiasm for the campaign for the election now to be held and until polling day.

I have more influence now than when I had the power.

Whitlam hands traditional land over

Vincent Lingiari, I solemnly hand to you these deeds as proof, in Australian law, that these lands belong to the Gurindji people and I put into your hands this piece of the earth itself as a sign that we restore them to you and your children forever.

I was profoundly embarrassed by it (the White Australia Policy) and did all I could to change it.

On Malcolm Fraser

He is lofty, and I am eminent.

Whitlam in China

Hostility towards China distorted Australia’s international affairs for 20 years until 1972, but reconciliation with China 30 years ago had produced a quarter century of constructive bipartisan relations with our region and the world, unmatched in Australian history.

Poverty is a national waste as well as individual waste. We are all diminished when any of us are denied proper education. The nation is the poorer – a poorer economy, a poorer civilisation, because of this human and national waste.

Conscription is an impediment to achieving the forces Australia needs. It is an alibi for failing to give proper conditions to regular soldiers. We will abolish conscription forthwith. By abolishing it, Australia will achieve a better army, a better-paid army – and a better, united society.

My great objective as a parliamentarian was to dramatise the deficiencies and devise practical government programs to deal with them. It was a cause that went to the heart of our way of life.

Gough Whitlam as Werriwa MP, 1957-59

 

The punters know that the horse named Morality rarely gets past the post, whereas the nag named Self-interest always runs a good race.