"Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times."
— Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five
"My notion of democracy is that under it, the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest…. No country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak…. Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism…. True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village."
—
Gandhi
This is still relevant today.
(via mohandasgandhi)
(vía thesunisfalling)
"The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied…but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing."
— John Berger (via rossencraft)
(Fuente: , vía thesunisfalling)
"The rich talk about the rise of socialism to divert attention from the fact that they are devouring the basics of the poor and everyone else. Many of those crying socialism the loudest are doing it to enrich or empower themselves. They are right about one thing – there is a class war going on in the US. The rich are winning their class war, and it is time for everyone else to fight back for economic justice."
—
Bill Quigley
(via azspot)
(vía parkstepp)
"Stupid Souls… are as often found on the throne as on the Dunghill"
— James Sullivan
“if you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor. You can still keep your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, ‘I’m a free man in here’” - he tapped his fore head - “and you’re all right.” - Bozo from Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
