Politics and Power

The people who cast the votes do not decide an election, the people who count the votes do.

After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say "I want to see the manager." William S.

Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.

We haven’t got too much time left to ensure that government of the earth, by the earth, for the earth, shall not perish from the people.

Power is the most persuasive rhetoric.

The Pope! How many divisions has he got?

 

The official world, the corridors of power.

 

Heaven will one day open

 

And what have kings that privates have not too,

 

Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.

 

I think the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me.

 

The sun does not set in my dominions.

 

An illiterate king is a crowned ass.

 

We live, deaf to the land beneath us, Ten steps away no one hears our speeches, But where there’s so much as half a conversation The Kremlin’s mountaineer will get his mention.

 

One by one forging his laws, to be flung Like horseshoes at the head, the eye, or the groin. And every killing is a treat For the broad-chested Ossete.

 

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race.

 

Armed peace.

 

Radical Chic . . . is only radical in Style; in its heart it is part of Society and its tradition—Politics, like Rock, Pop, and Camp, has its uses.

“Where they got you stationed now, Luke?” . . . [“]In Norfolk at the Navy base,” Luke answered, “m-m-making the world safe for hypocrisy.”

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.

If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don’t bother to vote, you are in effect votingfor the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don’t bullshit yourself that you’re not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting : you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard’s vote.

Ce Corps qui s’appellait, & qui s’appelle encor, le saint Empire Romain, n’était en aucune maniére, ni saint, ni Romain, ni Empire .

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent too. Words are used to disguise, notto illuminate, action: You liberate a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

Except for God, the King’s our only lord and master.