Browsing PBH By Quotes

This Is As Good As It Gets

Posted on February 12, 2008 in Quotes

Truthfully, this is as good as it gets. We won’t have a chance like this again for some time-if ever, we know that, and we’ve fallen in line. The power structure has allowed this brotha to compete as long as he is clear on a few ground rules: no material changes will be made to the racist global economic order, Africa will not be liberated from its economic dependence on the World Bank and the IMF, and incremental changes in domestic economic institutions like the [tag]health care system[/tag] will be permitted within certain limits.

From [tag]Skeptical Brotha[/tag]’s post [tag]Barack Obama[/tag], a proxy for [tag]racial equality[/tag]

More on the Everyday Man

Posted on February 10, 2008 in Quotes

“Today man believes that there is nothing in him, so he accepts anything, even if he knows it to be bad, in order to find himself at one with others, in order not to be alone.”

– [tag]Czeslaw Milosz[/tag]

“The mood of the Colosseum goes together with the age of the corporation, which offers entertainment in place of values. The Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz provides the definitive view on why [tag]Americans[/tag] degrade themselves with [tag]mass culture[/tag]: “Today man believes that there is nothing in him, so he accepts anything, even if he knows it to be bad, in order to find himself at one with others, in order not to be alone.” Of course, it is because people find so little in themselves that they fill their world with celebrities. The masses avoid important national and international news because much of it is tragic, even as they show an unlimited appetite for the details of Princess Diana’s death. This willingness to give up self and responsibility is the sine qua non for [tag]tyranny[/tag].”

– [tag]Robert Kaplan[/tag] in [tag]Was Democracy Just a Moment[/tag]

The Revolt of the Masses

Posted on February 6, 2008 in Quotes

“The mass man loves gags. He is a spoilt child, demanding amusement, given to tantrums… His only commandment is Thou shalt expect convenience”

– Saul Bellow, in his introduction to José Ortega y Gasset’s book The Revolt of the Masses

“The mass man is obviously interested in automobiles, anesthetics, and all manner of sundries. And these things confirm his profound lack in interest itself. For all these things are mere products of civilization, and the passion he displays for them makes more crudely obvious his insensibility to the principles which made them possible”.

– José Ortega y Gasset’s, The Revolt of the Masses

“For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!”

Posted on February 3, 2008 in Quotes

“Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need. As absurd as it may sound: Development aid is one of the reasons for Africa’s problems. If the West were to cancel these payments, normal Africans wouldn’t even notice. Only the functionaries would be hard hit. Which is why they maintain that the world would stop turning without this development aid.”

James Shikwati, a Kenyan economist in an interview with Spiegel