The policy of this country is a canal under American control. The United States cannot consent to the surrender of this control to... any European power.... The capital invested by corporations or citizens of other countries in such an enterprise must in a great degree look for protection to one or more of the great powers of the world. No European power can intervene for such protection without adopting measures on this continent which the United States would deem wholly inadmissible. If the protection of the United States is relied upon, The United States must exercise such control as will enable this country to protect its national interests.... An interoceanic canal across the American Isthmus ... would be the great ocean thoroughfare between our Atlantic and our Pacific shores, and virtually a part of the coastline of the United States. Our merely commercial interest in it is greater than that of all other countries, while its relations to our power and prosperity as a nation, to our means of defense, our unity, peace, and safety, are matters of paramount concern to the people of the United States.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the labor interests, an...d the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When we were told that by freedom we understood free enterprise, we did very little to dispel this monstrous falsehood.... Wealth ...and economic well-being, we have asserted, are the fruits of freedom, while we should have been the first to know that this kind of "happiness" ... has been an unmixed blessing only in this country, and it is a minor blessing compared with the truly political freedoms, such as freedom of speech and thought, of assembly and association, even under the best conditions.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Nor was civil society founded merely to preserve the lives of its members; but that they might live well: for otherwise a state mi...ght be composed of slaves, or the animal creation ... nor is it an alliance mutually to defend each other from injuries, or for a commercial intercourse.... But whosoever endeavors to establish wholesome laws in a state, attends to the virtues and vices of each individual who composes it; from whence it is evident, that the first care of him who would found a city, truly deserving that name, and not nominally so, must be to have his citizens virtuous.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The automobile and the telephone are defeated as instruments of individualism by being applied to the needs of a mass society. The... automobile fulfills man's desire to move over the surface of the earth all by himself; but by becoming accessible to everybody, automobiles have paralyzed our streets. Individualism is possible only in plenty of empty space. Similarly, telephones block their own paths of individual communication when everybody is talking: the phone is too often "busy." Private enterprise cannot but strangle itself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is every reason to rejoice with those self-styled prophets of commercial disaster, those harbingers of gloom, Over the ...imminent lateness of the denouement that, advancing slowly, never arrives, At the same time keeping the door open to a tongue-in-cheek attitude on the part of the perpetrators....LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer g...oing to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It's going to be commercial and nasty at the same time.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I wouldn't be above brainwashing your child about which shows you think are good and which you think are just awful. Nor would I h...esitate to enlighten a child about products that are advertised on TV. If you watch a commercial with your child, say to him, "Remember when we saw that toy at the store and it was just a piece of junk? You can't always tell when you see it on TV, because there are ways of filming it at different angles to make it look bigger and more powerful. Keep that in mind when you think you want all those toys they advertise."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The futility of everything that comes to us from the media is the inescapable consequence of the absolute inability of that partic...ular stage to remain silent. Music, commercial breaks, news flashes, adverts, news broadcasts, movies, presenters--there is no alternative but to fill the screen; otherwise there would be an irremediable void.... That's why the slightest technical hitch, the slightest slip on the part of the presenter becomes so exciting, for it reveals the depth of the emptiness squinting out at us through this little window.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »