The Quotes thread

Politics, History, & 'Conspiracy'
IDL
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The Quotes thread

Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 12:49 am

This thread can be a place for insightful, revealing quotes or snippets

IDL
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Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 12:50 am

It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have even in totalitarian countries. Fichte laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished. But in his day this was an unattainable ideal: what he regarded as the best system in existence produced Karl Marx. In future such failures are not likely to occur where there is dictatorship. Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.
A totalitarian government with a scientific bent might do things that to us would seem horrifying. The Nazis were more scientific than the present rulers of Russia, and were more inclined towards the sort of atrocities that I have in mind.


- Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, 1952
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Impac ... on_Society

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Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 12:53 am

I think the subject which will be of most importance polit­ically is mass psychology. Mass psychology is, scientifically speaking, not a very advanced study, and so far its professors have not been in universities: they have been advertisers, politicians, and, above all, dictators. This study is immensely useful to practical men, whether they wish to become rich or to acquire the government. It is, of course, as a science, founded upon individual psychology, but hitherto it has employed rule-of-thumb methods which were based upon a kind of intuitive common sense. Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called "education." Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part. What is essential in mass psychology is the art of per­suasion. If you compare a speech of Hitler's with a speech of (say) Edmund Burke, you will see what strides have been made in the art since the eighteenth century. What went wrong formerly was that people had read in books that man is a rational animal, and framed their arguments on this hypothesis. We now know that limelight and a brass band do more to persuade than can be done by the most elegant train of syllogisms. It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment.

This subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship. Anaxagoras maintained that snow is black, but no one believed him. The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen. As yet there is only one country which has succeeded in creating this politician's paradise.


- Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society, 1952
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Impac ... on_Society

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Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 12:57 am

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.


Edward Bernays, Propoganda, 1928
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/203430- ... habits-and

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Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:36 am

..they who control the credit of a nation, direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people.


Reginald McKenna, former Chancellor of the Exchequer, addressing the stockholders as Chairman of the Midland Bank, in January 1924. Source: Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope, page 325
http://dishonestmoney.com/sourced_quote ... nking.html

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Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:38 am

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson...The country is going through a repetition of Jackson's fight with the Bank of the United States — only on a far bigger and broader basis.


President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a letter to Col. Edward Mandell House (21 November 1933) Source: F.D.R.: His Personal Letters, 1928-1945 (1970 edition) edited by Elliott Roosevelt
http://dishonestmoney.com/sourced_quote ... nking.html

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Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:39 am

Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States…are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it


President Woodrow Wilson Source: in his book The New Freedom
http://dishonestmoney.com/sourced_quote ... nking.html

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Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:41 am

I sincerely believe...that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies...


President Thomas Jefferson in a letter to John Taylor in 1816 Source: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson
http://dishonestmoney.com/sourced_quote ... nking.html

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Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:42 am

Some…believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.


David Rockefeller in his book Memoirs, page 405
http://dishonestmoney.com/sourced_quote ... nking.html

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Postby IDL » Sat Aug 01, 2015 1:43 am

In addition to their power over government, based on government financing and personal influence, bankers could steer governments in ways they wished them to go by other pressures. Since most government officials felt ignorant of finance, they sought advice from bankers whom they considered to be experts in the field. The history of the last century shows...that the advice given to governments by bankers, like the advice they gave to industrialists, was consistently good for bankers, but was often disastrous for governments, businessmen, and the people generally. Such advice could be enforced, if necessary, by manipulation of exchanges, gold flows, discount rates, and even levels of business activity.


Carroll Quigley in his book Tragedy and Hope page 62
http://dishonestmoney.com/sourced_quote ... nking.html


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