Anti Communists

"One of the Korean nationalists who was shattered by the failed campaign for Korean nationhood in Paris was Syngman Rhee. Born in 1875, Rhee had spent six years in prison for nationalist activities. He then moved to the United States, where he was the first Korean to get a US PhD (from Princeton in 1910). Rhee was a tireless editor and publisher of nationalist texts during his long exile in the United States. At the core of all of them was the need to get US support for the just Korean cause. Appealing to Woodrow Wilson in 1919, Rhee had called out: “You have already championed the cause of the oppressed and held out your helping hand to the weak of the earth’s races. Your nation is the Hope of Mankind, so we come to you.” Twenty years later Rhee had still not given up hope of US support. Right before Pearl Harbor he published a book predicting that Japan would attack the United States and that the best hope for a US victory would be an alliance with nationalists on the Asian mainland, including (prominently) in Korea. Rhee envisioned Korea as a modern country that embraced its Confucian past. The president of the Republic of Korea in exile, as he now styled himself, wanted a Korea invigorated by US technology and management methods, but within the constraints of traditional virtues. As much as he hated the Japanese, he despised Korean radicals who wanted a socialist country after liberation. They were nothing but stooges of the Russians, Rhee thought. Just like some Koreans had joined up with the Japanese, others had ended up in bed with the Soviets. To Rhee they were defectors who had to return to true Korean nationalism, which—with US assistance—would build a new nation under his leadership."

"The Soviets are winning a victory in their Cold War. First of all, they give Communist agitators money, weapons, and propaganda literature in order to incite discord among the people. Then they organize Communist supporters into bands of terrorists, murderers, and thieves, commit murders, burn, and turn all human society into a hell."

"Daily I pray for the joint success of our arms, for clear skies so that the planes of the United States Airforce may search out and destroy the enemy, and for the earliest possible arrival of sufficient men and material so that we can turn to the offensive, break through the hard crust of enemy forces and start the victorious march north. I have no slightest doubt in the ultimate victory of our cause; I know that both right and might are on our side."

"They are doing everything possible to create confusion. In acting this way the Communists increase their strength, and expand and deepen their influence. The more they steal the more money they get. With this money they commit murders and other subversive activity. But terrorists cannot be able to count on anyone everywhere. They are forced to use all their capabilities for their own defense and such a situation continues all the time. They cannot continue the struggle. Sooner or later they are forced to surrender. This is just what happened in China and in other places."

"The people of North Korea are the same as the people of South Korea. All are loyal to the land of their birth with the very few minor exceptions of foreign trained and foreign directed communists. This war is not a conflict between North and South; it is a conflict between the few who are communists, who by an accident got control of half of our country, and the overwhelming mass of the citizens of Korea, wherever they may live."

"Since we are developing a lot of small and medium-sized enterprises, we are trying to make all these industries free by the private sector to increase productivity nationwide to make things for domestic use and export, and at the same time create jobs so that there is no unemployment."

"When possible, children should be comfortable and free when they are playing or studying, and it is the way in a civilized country to make them more comfortable by not being too strict and giving grace and love at the same time."

"As a first-generation immigrant, I want to make the soil richer. My kid will grow up in a free world without fear and will be thinking like an ordinary American. I envy him very much."

"This fear of the power of the totalitarian state is something normal people cannot understand."

"I kept on reading, observing and reflecting on China’s political and social problems. Then in that year I suddenly felt a strong need to express my ideas. Comics is what I am good at, so I began to create political comics."

"People who live in totalitarian countries experience educational brainwashing and real fear of the government. They are not brave enough to stand out and express different opinions."

"I felt a narrowing of freedom of speech. The change was very pronounced when you compare Xi Jinping to previous eras of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao."

"I and the queen are pleased and delighted to see the people having goodwill. Your unity in showing your goodwill is a good sign for everyone to do good things for the prosperity of the nation."

"Thais are patriotic. They love the Kingdom. It is our national characteristic. Thai people are as knowledgeable and capable as citizens of any countries. That is why it should be trusted that if we put our heads and join our hands together we should certainly be able to tackle obstacles, problems or any incident of irregularities in our country."

"There are many ways to work, it’s important to have dedication and resolve to serve the people, the country and the highest institutions of the nation. The people want to be happy. The people want to have confidence and security, and they are willing to walk in the right direction. Therefore, the cabinet has a duty to steer, safeguard and protect our nation."

"I invite everyone here and all Thai people to share my determination and work together, each according to his status and duty, with the nation’s prosperity and the people’s happiness as the ultimate goals."

"Thailand has been a peaceful nation for a long time; this is because of the existence of national solidarity and because members of society have performed their duty in a complementary manner with each other for the interest of the whole nation."

"I shall maintain my loyalty to the country and honesty to the people. I will perform my duties to the best of my abilities with dedication, for the prosperity, peace and lasting security of the Thai kingdom, till the day I die."

"I want the unity shown here with this goodwill to be an encouraging sign for everybody, all sides to perform their duties for the prosperity of our country."

"My philosophy has been to take things day by day. When I talk about this philosophy it makes people perhaps a little surprised."

"If they want to write about me in a good way, they should write how I do things that are useful. If they want to criticize me, I don't care, I don't mind. But they must criticize me fairly. Usually the criticism is not fair. Or the praise, even the praise sometimes is not fair."

"I do some things that are within my rights and then they see that it is something that is all right. So they begin to understand that I am doing things not for my own enrichment or my own interest. It is for the whole country."

"Sufficiency means to lead a reasonably comfortable life, without excess, or overindulgence in luxury, but enough. Some things may seem to be extravagant, but if it brings happiness, it is permissible as long as it is within the means of the individual. This is another interpretation of the sufficiency economy or system. Last year, when I mentioned the word sufficiency, I mentally translated it and actually spelled it out as self-sufficiency; that is why I said sufficiency for the individual. In fact, this sufficiency economy has a wider meaning than just self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency means that the individual produces the things to fulfill his own needs without having to purchase them from others; the individual can live entirely on his own."

"All Thais should realise this point a lot and behave and perform our duties accordingly, our duty for the sake of the public, for stability, security for our nation of Thailand."

"If the King can do no wrong, it is akin to looking down upon him, because the King is not being treated as a human being. The King can do wrong."

"You can stay in the frame of the law, You do what the law says. That is, if you say something, the Prime Minister or a minister must countersign, and if he is not there to countersign, we cannot speak. That is one way to do it - do nothing, just nothing at all. The other way is to do too much, use the influence we have to do anything. That doesn't work either. We must be in the middle, and working in every field."

"Knowledge, understanding and cooperation will lead the country to happiness, security and progress."

"Development of the nation must be carried out in stages, starting with the laying of the foundation by ensuring the majority of the people with their basic necessities through the use of economical means and equipment in accordance with theoretical principles. Once reasonably firm foundation has been laid and in effect, higher levels of economic growth and development should next be promoted."

"It is highly important to encourage and help people inearning their living and supporting themselves with adequatemeans, because those who are gainfully employed andself-supporting are capable of contributing definitelytowards higher levels of development."

"Some complained they were asked too much to sacrifice for the sake of common interest that they were annoyed to hear. They might think what they would get in return if they keep sacrificing. Actually, doing good for the sake of common interest does not bear fruits only to the public but also to the individuals...."

"The Nation belongs to everyone, not one or two specific people. The problems exist because we don't talk to each other and resolve them together. The problems arise from 'bloodthirstiness'. People can lose their minds when they resort to violence. Eventually, they don't know why they fight each other and what the problems they need to resolve are. They merely know that they must overcome each other and they must be the only winner. This no way leads to victory, but only danger. There will only be losers, only the losers. Those who confront each other will all be the losers. And the loser of the losers will be the Nation.... For what purpose are you telling yourself that you're the winner when you're standing upon the ruins and debris?"

"If we are a highly advanced country, there is only oneway to go: backwards. Mind you, those highly industrializedcountries are bound to go down, and down in a very dangerous way. On the other hand, if we use a “poor man’s”method of administration, without being too dogmatic about theory, but with the spirit of Unity in mind, that is, with mutual tolerance, we will have more stability."

"It is here, in war-torn Kyiv, that history is being made. It is here, that freedom fights against the world of tyranny. It is here that the future of us all hangs in the balance. EU supports UA, which can count on the help of its friends — we brought this message to Kyiv today."

"So today, platforms and communication networks and intellectual property are even more important than the land and the buildings and the technology assembly lines and all the materials that go into creating these digital realms. And these dynamics do not make it easier to grasp the elements of the moving parts of the complicated interdependent economic jigsaw puzzle that is our modern age."

"We have to be consistent and patient with regard to our Russia policy because the stability of Russian strategic policy is a challenge to us and to the European Union, where governments change much more often than in Russia and where there are different views on Russia. The further from the east, the lesser Russia is perceived as a threat."

"At such breakthrough times for the world, it is our duty to be where history is forged; because it is not about us, but about the future of our children who deserve to live in a world free from tyranny."

"An EU in which there is a European oligarchy that punishes the weakest (of the member states) is not the EU we have entered and it is not the EU that has a future. We say 'yes' to the European Union, but 'no' to being punished like children. 'No' to mechanisms which mean that Poland and other countries are treated unfairly."

"We cannot accept turning perpetrators and those responsible for committing cruel crimes against both innocent people and invaded countries into victims. Together - in the name of those who perished and for the good of our common future - we must preserve the truth."

"We are fighting to make sure that no country, neither today nor tomorrow, is denied funding based on an arbitrary and non-transparent mechanism. This is a matter of fundamental trust on which the European law is based."

"The French writer, Albert Camus, once lamented that "man eventually becomes accustomed to everything". I have always believed that this is an unjustly pessimistic view of our human condition; and in recent weeks I have seen enough to convince me that Camus, on this point at least, was wrong: 30,000 East Germans abandoning home, friends, jobs, everything, to escape to a new life of opportunity but also uncertainty in the West; thousands of Soviet miners striking not for more pay, but for better supplies; the joy of Poles as they greet their first non-Communist Prime Minister in 40 years; over a million inhabitants of the Baltic states forming a human chain to protest against the forced annexation of their nations; demonstrators in Prague braving the security forces to mark the 21st anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion; or in Leipzig calling for freedom of speech. Clearly the peoples of the East have not become accustomed to their lot. Totalitarian rule has not made people less attracted by freedom, democracy and self-determination. The opposite is true. Nor has it made them incapable of exercising these values through political organization and self-expression: look at the debates in the new Congress of the People's Deputies, the activities of the popular fronts, Solidarity in Poland or the opposition parties in Hungary. The demand for pluralism and reform can now be heard in every Eastern nation."

"The 1988 strikes discouraged the Party leadership and demonstrated its failure to find a solution to Poland’s problems. Combined with Gorbachev’s renunciation of intervention on behalf of Communism, this failure encouraged the leadership to move toward yielding its monopoly of power. On 30 November 1988, there was a televised debate between Lech Walesa and Alfred Miodowicz, the head of the official trade union federation and a member of the Politburo. This was a highly significant step as the television served as a means of controlling the dissemination of opinion. On 6 February 1989, Round Table talks between government and the technically illegal opposition began, with the Church, an institution of great prestige in Poland, playing an important mediatory role. Under an agreement, signed on 5 April 1989, reached against a background of widespread strikes, elections were held in Poland on 4 June. Only 35 per cent of the seats in the lower house, the Sejm, were awarded on the basis of the free vote, the remainder going to the Communists and their allies, but all of these seats were won by Solidarity. This expression of the public will was a dramatic blow to the old order. Communist cohesion collapsed, not least with the Communist Party being abandoned by its hitherto pliant allies. Strikes and other protests meanwhile continued. The new government was headed by Tadeusz Mazowiecki, a member of Solidarity and a Catholic intellectual. He became the first non-Communist Prime Minister behind the Iron Curtain. There was, however, to be a major division between those who endorsed the ‘Round Table’ political settlement of 1989 as a way to avoid bloodshed, and those who criticised it as, allegedly, a compromise providing subsequent cover for ex-Communists to pillage the state."

"All the atrocities and all the victims, everything that happened during the Second World War on Polish soil, has to be attributed to Germany. We will never be accused of complicity in the Holocaust. This is our 'to be or not to be.'"

"Algorithms or the owners of corporate giants should not decide which views are right and which are not. There is no and can be no consent to censorship. Freedom of speech is the salt of democracy, for that reason we must defend it. The owners of social platforms cannot act above the law. We will suggest that similar regulations are also put in place in all of the European Union."

"We, as a people, must surmount the sense of hopelessness and confront the challenge of the moment - namely, the tasks of extricating ourselves from economic disaster and reconstructing our state."

"We reject a political philosophy asserting that economic reforms can be launched over and against society, above people's heads - one that pushes democratic change aside."

"The Polish people are acutely aware of belonging to Europe and the European heritage. They are as conscious of this as are the other European peoples situated at the cultural crossroads adjacent to the superpowers, experiencing alternating phases of political existence and non-existence and hence feeling the need to strengthen their identity. In all these situations, Europe has always remained a beacon, an object of affection which the Poles felt ready to defend."

"We all desire to live with dignity in a sovereign, democratic, and law-abiding state, one that everybody - regardless of their worldviews and ideological and political diversity - can consider their own."

"The government alone will not heal any-thing. We must do this together, for Poland will only be different, if we all truly want it to be so."

"We want to live in a country with a sound economy, one where it is profitable to work and to save money, and where meeting our basic material needs entails no anguish or humiliation. We want a Poland that is open to Europe and to the world; a Poland which, with no inferiority complex, contributes to the creation of material and cultural goods; a Poland whose citizens will feel they are welcome guests in the other countries of Europe and the world, and are not deemed troublemaking intruders."

"If we have managed to survive as an entity, we owe this partly to our deep attachment to certain institutions and certain values regarded as the norm in Europe. We owe it to religion and the Church, our attachment to democracy and pluralism, human rights and civil liberties and to the ideal of solidarity."