politics

  1. Good book by a kind person. Galeano tried to tell the story. And I understand all the suffering Latin American countries had over the centuries.

    However. There is one big “however.” I am coming from Eastern Europe. Galeano, in 1970, was pro-Soviet Union. I checked GDP for Ukraine and Argentina in 1991. Just after the collapse of the USSR. The difference is huge. Almost all countries of Latin America have higher GDP per capita. Argentine GDP is six times higher now than the Ukrainian one (population is the same)! So I don’t know. Of course, Latin America could be way better. But Eastern Europe was screwed over way harder!

     Eduardo Galeano
  2. Too simple and too tied to the things that were going on in the USA during 2016. My expectations were much higher, especially given author’s background as a historian.
    Tymothy Snyder

  3. Havel is a role model. He shows us what a public figure, a politician and a citizen can be. He is definitely not afraid to think deeper and to express himself. He is not afraid to formulate unpopular opinions. He tries to understand pluses and minuses of each system. E.x. he is for continous political integration, but he thinks globalization is a problem. He recognized the pitfalls of both Soviet regime and consumerism society that both causes normalization and standardization of people.

    It was interesting for me to read his book for several reasons:

    • to learn his story
    • to learn about his thoughts
    • to take a look at his diary

    The diary of the President was an interesting read on itself. It contained his agenda for a lot of days and it showed him as a real simple very likable human, which is quite opposite of the politicians of the day.

    Havel wanted to be a role model. He wanted to remind his fellow citizens of better and bigger ideals, he wanted to inspire them to improve. Politicians of today mostly move in opposite direction. They just represent the worst parts of our society and our people. If society is corrupt, politicians are corrupt. If society is uneducated, politicians are profane.

     Václav Havel
  4. As Xenophanes remarked twenty-five centuries ago, men always make their gods in their own image. But to this, television politics has added a new wrinkle: Those who would be gods refashion themselves into images the viewers would have them be.
    Neil Postman
  5. For example, a person who has seen one million television commercials might well believe that all political problems have fast solutions through simple measures—or ought to.
    Neil Postman
  6. Politics, he tells him, is the greatest spectator sport in America. In 1966, Ronald Reagan used a different metaphor. “Politics,” he said, “is just like show business.”
    Neil Postman
  7. Brooks was making a kind of prophecy … that the producers of American culture will increasingly turn our history, politics, religion, commerce, and education into forms of entertainment, and that we will become as a result a trivial people, incapable of coping with complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty, perhaps even reality. We will become, in a phrase, a people amused into stupidity.
    Neil Postman
  8. The fate of humanity, according to him (Editor: Tiger), does not depend upon the foolish moves of its politicians but upon revolutions so discreet that scarcely anyone perceives them.
    Czesław Miłosz
  9. Whoever claims that force cannot suffice as an argument overlooks the character of politics, where the winner takes all. If it were possible to withdraw from politics, then the values of truth and ethics would hold. But it is not possible to withdraw, so all one can do is try to save these values or embody them in politics.
    Czesław Miłosz
  10. Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and hey were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    George Orwell
  11. I think that politicians in office have a duty to work for peace and for a better and more just world; you might say that’s what they’re paid for and so it’s better that the prize go to someone who works for good cause voluntarily, and possibly at great risk.
    Václav Havel
  12. Sometimes I have the impression that the main ideal of our state is to exploit and disfigure our country to the hilt in the interest of a somewhat problematic consumer paradise for the present generation and to slap the face or kick the shins of anyone who resists this.
    Václav Havel
  13. …in democratic conditions … it’s important that politics be more than just a technology of power, but that it provides a genuine service to citizens, a service that is as disinterested as possible, based on certain ideals, a service that follows the moral order that stands above us, that takes into account the long-term interest of human race and not just what appeals to the public at any given moment … That doesn’t mean that politics must surrender all its ideals, deny its “heart”, and become a mere self-propelled, technocratic process…
    Václav Havel
  14. … I think that the creation of a new political world order requires that special attention to be paid to the problem of borders between individual spheres of civilization, a problem that can be solved only if the spheres that are momentarily wealthier cease to consider themselves superior to those that are momentarily poorer.
    Václav Havel
  15. The absence of standards creates unease even among the most notorious violators. I experienced that in prison. Even the worst criminals would have been very upset if the head of the state were to clearly approve of something criminal. Everyone has to play his own role: it’s up to the president to say you shouldn’t steal, and it’s up to the thief to steal.
    Václav Havel
  16. Only a fool could believe that the nation, or the whole humanity for that matter, would change overnight and that everyone would start to behave wisely, unselfishly, altruistically, ready to make sacrifices for a good cause.
    Václav Havel
  17. People told me exactly what I would later often say to others when trying to draw them into politics: you can’t spend your whole life criticizing something and then, when you have the chance to do it better, refuse to go near it.
    Václav Havel
  18. When I said that we would no longer be a satellite but a partner, Gorbachev had an interesting reaction. He said that “satellite” was a very strong and inaccurate word, but that he would forgive me for using such a colorful expression because I was a literary man. And I said to myself, so this is how history is made.
    Václav Havel