In here I'll be looking at speaking Thai as well as some of my favourite uses of English
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness
Mark Twain
Aggressive war is the supreme international crime
Nuremburg trials
no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council
UN charter, signed by all members
terror is the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to attain political or religious ideological goals through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear
Definition of Terrorism (US army manual quoted by Noam Chomsky)
Our children are not born to hate, they are raised to hate.
Thomas della Peruta
The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.
Marie Beyle
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.
General Smedley Butler
Power never takes a back step - only in the face of more power.
Malcolm X
Fascism is the convergence of corporations and the state.
Mussolini
There is no democracy without dissent
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real."
General Douglas MacArthur, 1957
When the Government violates the Constitution, it is the duty of the People to rise up against the Government to bring the Government into compliance with the Constitution.
US consitution
Our major mistakes have not been the result of democracy, but of the erosion of democracy made possible by the mass media's manipulation of public opinion.
Robert Cirino
Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear.
Alan Coren
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
Aristotle
They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety..
Benjamin Franklin
I would like to live in Manchester. The transition between Manchester and death would be unnoticeable.
Mark Twain
We all are being murdered by a similar process, whether you work at the candy store
Or slave at the office, the purpose of our life is just to serve the economy, they misinform our minds to paint a picture of harmony, but if you listen then you know that shits out of tune, Cuz the function of our life is just to work and consume, Fuck reaching out to help the next, there ain't any room, Just close your eyes and block your ears and march to your doom
Mr Lif - live from the plantation (hip hop song)
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Party policy from 1984 by George Orwell
Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious
Winston Smith's diary from 1984 by George Orwell
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
Adlai Ewing Stevenson (I wonder what it's like to be Muslim in England or gay in Texas? dn)
All our leaders are awful; but as long as they let the West steal their assets they are safe.
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Arundhati Roy
Freedom of conscience and religion, like freedom of speech, is essential to any democratic society. We must keep our heads and unite around democratic values, applying them to others as we want them applied to ourselves. We must all be able to think, wear and say what we like, subject only to personal ethics and restrictions truly necessary for the protection of others
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty
Freedom is when the people can speak, democracy is when the government listens.
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Alastair Farrugia
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.
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Noam Chomsky
He who lives with untruth lives in spirtual slavery.
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Martin Luther King
the broad mass of a nation ... will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one
.
Hitler
senior managers of corporations are legally obliged, on pain of prosecution, to seek to maximise profits for shareholders. Corporate managers “must always put their corporation’s best interests first and not act out of concern for anyone or anything else (unless the expression of such concern can somehow be justified as advancing the corporation’s own interests)
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Bakan, The Corporation, Constable, 2004, p.50
"Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube. This tube is the gospel, the ultimate revelation; this tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers; this tube is the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls into the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA, the Communications Corporation of America; there's a new chairman of the board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the 12th largest company in the world controls the most awesome goddamn propaganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network."
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Network, 1976 p.50
Agnostic - 1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2.a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.
Ambiguous - open to or having several possible meanings or interpretations; equivocal: an ambiguous answer
Anachronism - something located at a time when it could not have existed or occurred / an artifact that belongs to another time / a person who seems to be displaced in time; who belongs to another age
Analogy - drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect; "the operation of a computer presents and interesting analogy to the working of the brain"; "the models show by analogy how matter is built up"
Androgynous - neither clearly masculine nor clearly feminine in appearance 'the androgynous look of many rock stars'.
Antiquated - Out of date
Condescending - To deal with people in a patronizingly superior manner.
Contraband - Something which is prohibited from export or import
Copious - large in quantity or number; abundant; plentiful: copious amounts of food.
Dogma - a settled or established opinion, belief, or principle / a system of principles or tenets, as of a church.
Dogmatic - tending to force one's own opinions on other people. 'He's very dogmatic on this subject.'
dystopia - a society characterized by human misery, squalor, oppression, disease, and overcrowding.
Egalitarian - asserting, resulting from, or characterized by belief in the equality of all people, esp. in political, economic, or social life.
Enigma - a puzzling or inexplicable occurrence or situation / One that is puzzling, ambiguous, or inexplicable. 'I never really know what she is thinking, she's such an enigma.
Epiphany - a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.
Ethics - a system of moral principles: the ethics of a culture.
Facetious - not meant to be taken seriously or literally: a facetious remark.
Ideology - a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture. 'The president's ideological stance has alienated his neighbours'.
Idiosyncrasy - A a characteristic, habit, mannerism, or the like, that is peculiar to an individual. 'Everybody is idiosyncratic in there own little way'.
Inaugural - marking the beginning of a new venture/ The first.
Indoctrination - To imbue with a partisan or ideological point of view. 'Religion is the ultimate indoctrination'
infinitesimal - Tiny / immeasurably small; less than an assignable quantity: to an infinitesimal degree.
Irredeemable - irreparable; hopeless. 'Things have gotten so bad that they are no Irredeemable.'
Lucid - Clear / easily understood; completely intelligible or comprehensible: a lucid explanation.
Morality - A system of ideas of right and wrong conduct: religious morality; Christian morality.
Narcissism - inordinate fascination with oneself; excessive self-love; vanity. 'She's such a narcissist, she loves herself'.
Oligarchy - a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
Oblique - indirectly stated or expressed; not straightforward: oblique remarks about the candidate's honesty. / indirect in departing from the accepted or proper way; misleading; "used devious means to achieve success"; "gave oblique answers to direct questions"; "oblique political maneuvers
Occidental - A westerner.
Opaque - hard to understand; not clear or lucid; obscure: 'The problem remains opaque despite explanations'.
Oxymoron - A combination of self-contradictory terms, as in a deafening silence
Paradox - a statement that contradicts itself; "'I always lie' is a paradox because if it is true it must be false"
Plutocracy - 1.the rule or power of wealth or of the wealthy. 2. a class or group ruling, or exercising power or influence, by virtue of its wealth. 3. a government or state in which the wealthy class rules.
Pragmatic - concerned with practical matters; "a matter-of-fact (or pragmatic) approach to the problem"; "a matter-of-fact account of the trip"
Pragmatism - a philosophical movement or system having various forms, but generally stressing practical consequences as constituting the essential criterion in determining meaning, truth, or value.
Putrid - To smell very bad, e.g rotten fruit.
Repudiate - to reject as having no authority or binding force. 'I repudiate the claim'
Sadistic - The deriving of pleasure, or the tendency to derive pleasure, from cruelty.
Schadenfreude - satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.
Socilism - An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise, and in which cooperation rather than competition guides economic activity. There are many varieties of socialism. Some socialists tolerate capitalism, as long as the government maintains the dominant influence over the economy; others insist on an abolition of private enterprise. All communists are socialists, but not all socialists are communists.
Sporadic - Occurring at irregular intervals. 'Emile Heskey is a sporadic goal scorer!'
Stealth - a secret manner of acting. 'If I can't get what I want openly, I get it by stealth.'
Supercilious - showing arrogant superiority to somebody / thinking you are better than others.
Troglodyte - a prehistoric cave dweller/a person of degraded, primitive, or brutal character/a person unacquainted with affairs of the world.
Tumultuous - full of tumult or riotousness; marked by disturbance and uproar. '2006 was a tumultous year for Thailand.
Ubiquitous - Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent
Unique - One of a kind