America: Our Worst Critics Prefer to Stay. ~Freakonomics

The protection of [property] is the first object of government.    — James Madison, excerpt from “Federalist Number 10”

Everybody has their own America, and then they have the pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can't see. ~ Andy Warhol

War is to capitalism what a pond is to a frog.

The educated classes, somewhat fatally, failed to develop class consciousness.   ~ Anonymous

You’re sexy, you’re cute: Take off your riot suit! - Protesters in Portland, Oregon, to the police. 

Those who do not move do not notice their chains. ~ (Rosa Luxemburg, attrib.)

This will always remain one of the best jokes of democracy, that it gave its deadly enemies the means by which it was destroyed. ~ JOSEPH GOEBBELS, REICH MINISTER OF PROPAGANDA, 1933–45

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” ~ Dom Hélder Câmara

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. ~ Anatole France

The more people chant about their freedom and how free they are, The more loudly I hear their chains rattling. ~ (George Orwell, attrib.)

The truth can easily be beheaded. Anonymous Iranian Revolutionary.  

Karl Marx: “Since the purpose of productive labor is not the existence of the worker but the production of surplus value, all necessary labor which produces no surplus labor is superfluous and worthless to capitalist production.” “The Results of the Immediate Process of Production,” CW 34, p. 204

“ How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ” ― Anne Frank

When you want to ask the question...."what is man?," all you have got is history.  - Hayden Smith

The more laws, the less justice. Cicero

The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said “This is mine,” and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality

“If the citizens themselves devote their life to matters of trade, the way will be opened to many vices. Since the foremost tendency of tradesmen is to make money greed is awakened in the hearts of the citizens through the pursuit of trade. The result is that everything in the city will become venal; good faith will be destroyed and the way opened to all kinds of trickery; each one will work only for his own profit, despising the public good; the cultivation of virtue will fail since honor, virtue’s reward, will be bestowed upon the rich. Thus, in such a city, civic life will necessarily be corrupted.” ST. THOMAS AQUINAS On Kingship (II, 3)

First, they came for the communists but I was not a communist so I kept quiet. Then they came for the socialists and the trade unionists but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me. Martin Niemoller

There is nothing more liberating than advocating for a higher cause.  John McCain.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilisation. Ralph Waldo Emerson

'How can it be 'mutually beneficial' to sell at world market prices the raw materials that cost the underdeveloped countries immeasurable sweat and suffering, and to buy at world market prices the machinery produced in today's big automated factories?' — Che Guevara, 1965

With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. Oscar Wilde, 'The Soul of Man under Socialism,' 1891

Fascism attempts to organize the proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. Walter Benjamin

Social existence today conceals the person. It is part of that 6-card poker: two cards face up: appearance and social status, 3 cards you hold: physicality, money, the heart of hearts. One card is on your forehead, and everyone can see it but you. Anonymous. 

“Marxism is as alien to my culture as Capitalism and Christianity.”  ~ Russell Means (Oglála Lakhóta Oyáte).