Politik

""¿Qué te pasa, Clarín? ¿Estás nervioso?" (What's going on, Clarín? Are you nervous?) - A phrase used by ex-President Néstor Kirchner during the 2009 legislative campaign, referring to the accusations against Clarin Newspaper supposedly printing biased news. These allegations were later proven false. ."

""Mi voto es... no positivo." (My vote is... not positive) – Phrase said by Vice President Julio Cobos in 2008 when he voted against the controversial project of his own President ."

""Estamos condenados al éxito." ("We are doomed to success") – Phrase recurrently used by Eduardo Duhalde during his exercise of presidency after the 2001 crisis."

""El país está... bien." ("The country is... fine.") – A phrase said by Fernando de la Rúa when the 2000 Argentine Crisis started."

""Dicen que soy aburrido..." ("They say I am boring") – repeated campaign phrase from Fernando de la Rúa in 1999."

""Estamos mal, pero vamos bien." ("We're doing badly, but getting better.") – used by then president Carlos Saúl Menem in 1990 referring to the general state of affairs in the country."

""Hermanito querido..." ("My dear little brother...") – familiar term used by then president Carlos Saúl Menem, usually before a sarcastic remark. Used now, with its particularly provincial sing-song, in a jokingly derogatory way, when explaining something seemingly obvious to someone else."

""¡Síganme, no los voy a defraudar!" ("Follow me, I won't let you down!") – catchphrase by Carlos Saúl Menem during his first presidency campaign. Used now when one expects to be deceived by another."

""A vos no te va tan mal, gordito!" - ("You're not doing so bad, fatty!") - said by president Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín in reponse to a complaint about the country's inflation problems and the lack of food by an overweight man in the audience during a political rally, an ironic remark, because the overweight man clearly did not lack food."

""La casa está en orden. ¡Felices Pascuas!" – ("The house is in order. Happy Easter!") – said by then president Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín, after a limited military uprising just before Easter, when he was forced to negotiate a surrender from which the rebels walked free. Used sarcastically."

""¡Un médico a la derecha, por favor!" ("A doctor to the right, please!") — Said by presidential candidate Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín in 1983 during a speech, when seeing a person fainting."

""El que apuesta al dolar pierde." ("Whoever gambles with the dollar loses") - Said in 1976 by then Minister of Economy Lorenzo Sigaut in order to discourage the use of foregin currency to boost the local Peso. Ironically, two days after this statement the dollar increased in value by %30 making everyone who had "gambled" with the dollar rich. This display of incompetence eventually led to Sigaut's resignation."

""El viejo adversario le dice adiós a un amigo." ("The old adversary bids farewell to a friend.") - Said in 1974 by former head of the UCR, Ricardo Balbín at Juan Domingo Perón's funeral. Balbín had been Perón's biggest enemy during their political careers, but the phrase symbolizes how, despite their enmity Balbín was respectful enough of his adversary to solemnly attend his funeral."

""Hay que pasar el invierno." ("We have to endure through winter.") — Said in 1960 by Minister of Economy Álvaro Alsogaray, referring to the hardships required to get through the economic troubles in the country at a time of wanting of gas."

""Vivir fuera del presupuesto, es vivir en el error" (To live away from the budget is to live in error)"

""La política es como las fotos: el que se mueve, no sale" (Politics is like photography; if you move, you won't show up) — Fidel Velázquez, old-guard politician and worker's union corrupt leader, commenting on how inaction is often a better recipe in politics (especially old-style Mexican politics)."

""Un político pobre, es un pobre político" (A politician that is poor is a poor politician) — Carlos Hank González, old-guard politician and Forbes listed billionaire from Mexico's PRI (the then long-time ruling party) commenting on Mexico's crop of hugely enriched politicians (of which he was a prime example)."

""Bangsa Malaysia" (Malaysian nation) Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad's popular repeating catchphrase."

"Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible."

"Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. People love the president because he's certain of his choices as a leader, even if the facts that back him up don't seem to exist. It's the fact that he's certain that is very appealing to a certain section of the country. I really feel a dichotomy in the American populace. What is important? What you want to be true, or what is true?"

"You must remember, once more, that expectations are the blocks with which you build your reality. There are no exceptions to this rule."

"The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.""

"[Dissents are] appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day."

"Winston Churchill famously claimed that of all human qualities, courage was the most esteemed, because it guaranteed all others. He was right. Courage—moral courage—is the companion of great leadership. No politician could ever be viewed as exceptional unless he or she had it in spades. And historically there would have been no social progress if not for the presence of specific humans dissenting and breaking from herd-inspired suspicion and fear."

"The light of conscience ... enters the eyes of the soul, as the light of the sun enters the eyes of the body; and to open the former requires no greater effort than to open the latter."

"Trudeau: Well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed. But it's more important to keep law and order in the society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of a soldier— CBC reporter Tim Ralfe [interrupting]: At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that? Trudeau: Well, just watch me. … Society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power."

"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward."

"The heretic may be very irritating, he may be decidedly wrong, but the attempt to choke heresy or dissent from the dominant opinion by coercing the conscience is an incalculable danger to society. If war makes it necessary, it is the last count in the indictment against war."

"The fault I find with most American newspapers is not the absence of dissent. it is the absence of news. With a dozen or so honorable exceptions, most American newspapers carry very little news. Their main concern is advertising."

"In a society where dissenting viewpoints are suppressed, those viewpoints are potent and dangerous... Where dissent is tolerated, it rapidly becomes quaint and is viewed as un-sophisticated; people merely amuse themselves with the expression of contrary opinion."

"The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."

"A simple way to determine whether the right to dissent in a particular society is being upheld is to apply the town square test: Can a person walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm? If he can, then that person is living in a free society. If not, it's a fear society."

"The notion that truth is reached by the repression of dissent is the kind of claptrap that is believed—or at least implemented—by dictators and high school administrators."

"To be different is to be held in suspicion. The nonconformist is a subversive. Subversion and rebellion make societies become more generous, more diverse, more compassionate and an individual more free. For the inability or unwillingness to see rebellion as a virtue and not a flaw is what provokes the uncomprehending hostility that makes the anxious herd stifle dissent and stamp out anything different. But humanity is not a herd, and being human demands a vigilance against the kind of provocations that start stampedes."

"Chomsky reminds us that intellect and dissent go together, and that the vital challenge of our times is to maintain “an independent mind.” That’s not easy in an age of manufactured consent, but it is possible, as Chomsky so well reminds us — by continuing to speak, as consistently and as agilely as ever, about the lies of our times."

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty."

"The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

"There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, "I disagree." We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President."

"We see political leaders replacing moral imperatives with a Southern strategy. We have seen all too clearly that there are men—now in power in this country—who do not respect dissent, who cannot cope with turmoil, and who believe that the people of America are ready to support repression as long as it is done with a quiet voice and a business suit. And it is up to us to prove that they are wrong."

"It's beyond me how anybody can look at these protestors and call them anything other than what they are: anti-American, anticapitalist, pro-Marxist communists."

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."

"Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard."

"Political dissension is doubtless a less evil than the lethargy of despotism: but still it is a great evil, and it would be as worthy the efforts of the patriot as of the philosopher, to exclude its influence if possible, from social life. The good are rare enough at best. There is no reason to subdivide them by artificial lines. But whether we shall ever be able so far to perfect the principles of society as that political opinions shall, in its intercourse, be as inoffensive as those of philosophy, mechanics, or any other, may well be doubted."

"In the end it is worse to suppress dissent than to run the risk of heresy."

"The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. He is not seeking power. He has no desire for office and does not gather votes. He does not attempt to charm the public, he offers nothing and promises nothing. He can offer, if anything, only his own skin — and he offers it solely because he has no other way of affirming the truth he stands for. His actions simply articulate his dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost."

"A dissenting minority feels free only when it can impose its will on the majority: what it abominates most is the dissent of the majority."

"Daniel Sjursen, a 37-year old veteran of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan... has just written a new book called Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War... Sjursen skillfully debunks the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy establishment, and the military’s own current generation of “yes men for another war power hungry president.” His appeal to the conscience of fellow soldiers, veterans, and civilians is rooted in the unusual arc of an eighteen-year military career. His powerful voice, political insights, and painful personal reflections offer a timely reminder of how costly, wasteful, and disastrous our post 9/11 wars have been. Sjursen has the distinction of being a graduate of West Point, an institution that produces few political dissenters... Sjursen’s initial experience in combat—vividly described in his first book...“occurred at the statistical height of sectarian strife” in Iraq. “The horror, the futility, the farce of that war was the turning point in my life,” Sjursen writes in Patriotic Dissent. When he returned, at age 24, from his “brutal, ghastly deployment” as a platoon leader, he “knew that the war was built on lies, ill-advised, illegal, and immoral.” This “unexpected, undesired realization generated profound doubts about the course and nature of the entire American enterprise in the Greater Middle East—what was then unapologetically labeled the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).”"

"Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionaries and rebels—men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

"No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots."

"At a time when the U.S. “desperately needs a massive, public, empowered anti-war and anti-imperial wave” sweeping over the country, we have instead a “civil-military” gap that, Sjursen believes, has “stifled antiwar and anti-imperial dissent and seemingly will continue to do so.” That’s why his own mission is to find more “socially conscious veterans of these endless, fruitless wars” who are willing to “step up and form a vanguard of sorts for revitalized patriotic dissent.” Readers of Sjursen’s book, whether new recruits to that vanguard or longtime peace activists, will find Patriotic Dissent to be an invaluable educational tool."