Social Democrats

"I’m not sure. I’m not sure if you talk to the opposition, they would consider that to be an insult. They think they are doing a tremendous job."

"The presidency is not an office job. If I only sit in the office in Dar es Salaam I’m not running the country. I visit the country to inspect development programmes, to inspect activities, to see how things are going, how the government agenda is being implemented, what are the teething issues. And some of these problems simply need my simple word. My simple word of do it, then it is done."

"What became a problem is there was a clause that allowed investors to cover losses. As long as you made losses one year, you could carry them over to the next and to the next. And because of that they would pay no taxes. So this fellow takes all the gold away and he says he makes losses and so he does not pay us anything. So he is the only one that is being protected. Those of us who are losing our resources are not protected. This is the thing that created the kind of debate that we had and we had to renegotiate."

"This year alone, total world cereal production was estimated to be 2,114 million tonnes, while total cereal demand was projected at around 1007 million tonnes, less than half of the cereal production. Ideally, no one should starve or die of hunger in the world we live. Strangely and sadly enough, they do. This is not fair. This is not right."

"I told them (TFF) that I will pay the salary of a foreign coach but to date nobody has come to me with any plans concerning the hiring of a coach. I have only heard them saying that Tanzania has been drawn in a tough group. They are just complaining instead of starting preparations. They are waiting to make excuses when the team fails to qualify."

"Normally, foreign media organizations and others from the developed countries do not see anything good on the African continent. Those of us, who are well-traveled, know better. In their countries, the only news you get or hear about Africa is negative news... However, due to the good work done by our electoral bodies, the exemplary conduct of our defence and security organs, and your calmness and patience, we denied them the bad things they wanted to write about."

"Those who expect radical changes in policy and direction are mistaken and lost. The government of the fourth republic will build on what was undertaken by previous governments and will continue with all good things."

"It's very sad that Tanzania is a poor football country. If elected, I promise to put this country on the world football map. I will make sure we produce our own Okochas, El Hadji Dioufs and Zinedine Zidanes here."

". . . Neither Washington nor Moscow but the Third Camp of Independent Socialism!"

". . . You have discovered the class struggle, or rather its reflection, in the ranks of the party."

". . . the Negro in Africa had reared mighty empires, and astonishingly advanced achievements are linked with his race in the annals of mankind."

". . . The imperialism of the bureaucratic-collectivist states is different from that of the capitalist states. But the economic motive forces behind the one are no less powerful than in the case of the other. Only ignoramuses – people who know nothing about history and nothing about Lenin's theory of imperialism – can conceive of imperialism as a phenomenon unique to capitalist society."

"The Australian Government, therefore, regards the Pacific struggle as primarily one in which the United States and Australia must have the fullest say in the direction of the democracies' fighting plan. Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom."

"The Labor Party has no objection whatever to the Germans practicing nazi-ism in Germany; that is their concern. We do not engage in any philisophic discussions with them about that system so long as they make no endeavour to foist it by force upon people outside their country. We stand for self-government. In the same way, we offer no opinions regarding the justification or non-justification of bolshevism in Russia; that is the concern of the Russian people. Their form of government is their own affair, just as our form of government is our affair. The Labor Party believes in the right of peoples to govern themselves, and to enjoy a way of life which they themselves decide upon. We concede that right to Russia. We concede that right to Germany, and it is because we are claiming it for ourselves, and Germany denies it to us, that we are at war with Germany."

"There must be no hesitation to assume control of the means of production where that is essential in the public interest. In the economic life of the nation, no private interest can be allowed to stand against the welfare of the majority. Irrational privileges which disfigure our present order should be abolished. Economic freedom must be made real by giving security and a rising standard of living to all who, by their labour, make civilised life possible. We must substitute co-operation for competition and public service for private profit."

"Let us hope that the war in which Australia, in common with the rest of the Empire, is engaged will elevate the conscience of our nation to new and nobler purposes."

"Since the outbreak of war, Australians have been asked to join the armed forces and to make heavy sacrifices in many other ways for the preservation of freedom and democracy. The response by the people of Australia has been magnificent. But the words ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ must be more than a slogan. They must represent real and living things in the lives of ordinary men and women."

"Be assured of the calibre of our national character. This war may see the end of much that we have painfully and slowly built in our 150 years of existence. But even though all of it go, there will still be Australians fighting on Australian soil until the turning point be reached, and we will advance over blackened ruins, through blasted and fire-swepted cities, across scorched plains, until we drive the enemy into the sea. I give you the pledge of my country. There will always be an Australian Government and there will always be an Australian people. We are too strong in our hearts; our spirit is too high; the justice of our cause throbs too deeply in our being for that high purpose to be overcome."

"This country shall remain forever the home of the descendants of those people who came here in peace in order to establish in the South Seas an outpost of the British race."

"Democracy is the high school of compromise."

"The most audacious assault on the premises and agenda of Marxism was undertaken by Eduard Bernstein, a leading light of German social democracy and the founder of socialist “Revisionism.” Bernstein had spent many years in England, where he came in contact with the Fabians. In the late 1890s he appealed to Social Democrats to adjust their theory as well as their program to the fact that capitalism was not about to collapse and labor was not sinking into destitution. He continued to believe in socialism but, like Jaurès, thought it would come about as the result of peaceful political and social progress within capitalism. He foresaw something like a convergence of capitalism and socialism, with the latter emerging from the former. The German Social Democratic Party, Europe’s largest and most influential, rejected Bernstein’s Revisionist theories and continued to adhere to the revolutionary Erfurt Program. In practice, however, it did exactly what Bernstein advocated, that is, emphasize trade unionism and electoral politics. (It formally abandoned Marxism only in 1959.)"

"The fact of the modern national States or empires not having originated organically does not prevent their being organs of that great entity which we call civilised humanity, and which is much too extensive to be included in any single State. And, indeed, these organs are at present necessary and of great importance for human development. On this point Socialists can scarcely differ now. And it is not even to be regretted, from the Socialist point of view, that they are not characterised purely by their common descent. The purely ethnological national principle is reactionary in its results. Whatever else one may think about the race-problem, it is certain that the thought of a national division of mankind according to race is anything rather than a human ideal. The national quality is developing on the contrary more and more into a sociological function. But understood as such it is a progressive principle, and in this sense Socialism can and must be national. This is no contradiction of the cosmopolitan consciousness, but only its necessary completion, The world-citizenship, this glorious attainment of civilisation, would, if the relationship to national tasks and rational duties were missing, become a flabby characterless parasitism. Even when we sing "Ubi bene, ibi patria," we still acknowledge a "patria," and, therefore, in accordance with the motto, "No rights without duties"; also duties towards her."

"If democracy is not to excel centralised absolutism in the breeding of bureaucracies, it must be built up on an elaborately organised self-government with a corresponding economic, personal responsibility of all the units of administration as well as of the adult citizens of the state. Nothing is more injurious to its healthy development than enforced uniformity and a too abundant amount of protectionism or subventionism."

"We may think as we like theoretically, about man’s freedom of action, we must practically start from it as the foundation of the moral law, for only under this condition is social morality possible."

"The aim of all socialist measures, even of those which appear outwardly as coercive measures, is the development and the securing of a free personality. Their more exact examination always shows that the coercion included will raise the sum total of liberty in society, and will give more freedom over a more extended area than it takes away."

"The parties which assumed the names of liberals were, or became in due course, simple guardians of capitalism."

"Democracy is in principle the suppression of class government, though it is not yet the actual suppression of classes."

"[T]he increase of social wealth is not accompanied by a diminishing number of capitalist magnates, but by an increasing number of capitalists of all degrees."

"In other words, we have to stop this beaver woman before she's gnawn apart every welfare system we've got in our country."

"But that has nothing to do with ethnicity. Who's by the way Swedish and who's an immigrant?"

"If two equally qualified persons apply for a job at a workplace with few immigrants, the one called Mohammed should get the job."

"If you're a social democrat, then you think it's cool to pay taxes. For me, tax is the finest expression for what politics really is."

"I can not figure out what Swedish culture is. I think that's what makes many Swedes jealous of immigrant groups. You have a culture, an identity, a history, something that brings you together. And what do we have? We have Midsummer's Eve and such silly things."

"Fri rörlighet för arbetskraft vill vi ha, men inte social turism. Där får vi inte vara naiva."

"Jag är feminist, men vill inte driva de här frågorna så hårt att jag skapar motsättningar i samhället."

"Jag leder inte världens mest briljanta regering. Statsråden tillhör inte den yppersta intellektuella eliten och särskilt vackra är vi inte heller."

"Den som är satt i skuld är inte fri."

"Kanske jag blir lite för duktig ibland... Kanske är jag för påläst och kan ibland uppfattas som lite mästrande."

"För mig är det oerhört slående vad politisk stabilitet betyder för ekonomisk utveckling när man ser det kinesiska exemplet."

"Jaha, jag har bråttom. Öpp öpp! Håll er borta."

"Jag har trots allt läst på kemisk–teknisk linje på gymnasiet, så jag förstår vad det handlar om."

"Bush är underskattad i Europa och han är en skicklig politiker, även om vi inte tycker om hans politik."

"Racism should be viewed as an intervening variable. You give me a set of conditions and I can produce racism in any society. You give me a different set of conditions and I can reduce racism. You give me a situation where there are a sufficient number of social resources so people don't have to compete for those resources, and I will show you a society where racism is held in check. If we could create the conditions that make racism difficult, or discourage it, then there would be less stress and less need for affirmative action programs. One of those conditions would be an economic policy that would create tight labor markets over long periods of time. Now does that mean that affirmative action is here only temporarily? I think the ultimate goal should be to remove it."

"Affirmative action has to be combined with a broader program of social reform that would emphasize social rights: the right to employment, the right to education, the right to good health. Over the years, black leaders have been slow to recognize the need for a very, very progressive agenda. Anytime someone has talked about putting America back to work, blacks should have said yes, but they didn't. They were so preoccupied with affirmative action that they didn't provide the kind of leadership that would help some of the other progressive folks. Only now are black leaders beginning to realize the impact of economic issues."

"A lot of joblessness in the black community doesn't seem to be reachable through fiscal and monetary policies. People have not been drawn into the labor market even during periods of economic recovery. Our study clearly shows that employers would rather not hire a lot of workers from the inner city. They feel people from the inner city are not job-ready, that the kids have been poorly educated, that they can't read, they can't write, they can't speak."

"The problems we see today are going to be a hell of a lot worse in 10 years if we're not willing to face up to them. These kids are just not going to be absorbed into the economy, so what are they going to be doing? Well, we know. They're going to be making life pretty miserable for a lot of people."

"Liberals were intimidated by the Reagan administration and did not want to appear naive by talking about programs that called for government support. I just said, 'The hell with that. I'm out there. I'm exposed with this book.'"

"Our military forces are an arm of government, just like the Department of Social Welfare, although probably less able to inflict widespread harm."

"And I'm going to give it to you if you hold your breath just for a moment … I can smell the uranium on it as you lean towards me."

"When asked, "So, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?": "I'm going to be a jockey.""