Are you more likely to tolerate drivel than you were four years ago? I think the answer is yes. Four years of Reagan has deadenedthe senses against a barrage of uninterrupted nonsense. Alexander Cockburn More Quotes by Alexander Cockburn More Quotes From Alexander Cockburn They keep telling us that in war truth is the first casualty, which is nonsense since it implies that in times of peace truth stays out of the sick bay or the graveyard. Alexander Cockburn sick war firsts No chord in populism reverberates more strongly than the notion that the robust common sense of an unstained outsider is the best medicine for an ailing polity. Caligula doubtless got big cheers from the plebs when he installed his horse as proconsul. Alexander Cockburn horse medicine cheer The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it. Alexander Cockburn cynical prejudice law There is never finality in the display terminal's screen, but an irresponsible whimsicality, as words, sentences, and paragraphs are negated at the touch of a key. The significance of the past, as expressed in the manuscript by a deleted word or an inserted correction, is annulled in idle gusts of electronic massacre. Alexander Cockburn massacres keys past Be careful about Burma. Most people cannot remember whether it was Siam and has become Thailand, or whether it is now part of Malaysia and should be called Sri Lanka. Alexander Cockburn thailand sri-lanka people A childish soul not inoculated with compulsory prayer is a soul open to any religious infection. Alexander Cockburn soul religious prayer Cockburn's personal history links him to the politics of the Communist Party, and there are still moments in his writing - debating the number of people estimated to have perished in Stalin's gulags, claiming that 'the Brezhnev years were a Golden Age for the Soviet working class', when aspects of his father's convictions can be glimpsed. Alexander Cockburn party writing father There's a whole journalistic-industrial complex dedicated to keeping newsprint, TV screens and radio waves clean of destabilizing scoops damaging to corporations or the state. Alexander Cockburn radio-waves corporations tvs Republicans know well that a change of rhetorical pace is necessary. But efforts by their leaders to damp down the bellicosity of newly elected Tea Party types is running into the fact that the Tea Partiers have only the high volume setting on their amplifiers, just like Palin. They're like a couple having a fight at a funeral; politely sotto voce, then suddenly bursting out fortissimo with their plaints and accusations. Alexander Cockburn party couple running Pose a political threat to Business As Usual, and sooner or later, mostly sooner, someone will try to kill you. Alexander Cockburn political usual trying In its attempt to crush the Black Panthers, the FBI engineered frequent arrests on the flimsiest of pretexts. Alexander Cockburn panthers crush black Can it be that a generation of school children is growing up heedless of the simple truth that the Pentagon's centrla role for many years has been to buy weapons that don't work, against threats that don't exist? Alexander Cockburn growing-up peace children The art of politics is to separate actions from consequences Alexander Cockburn consequence action art So much for the crusade against drugs . . . all America is actually doing is consolidating its position as the biggest dealer in addictive and lethal substances on the planet, waging war on all rivals, whether they take the form of the Thai domestic tobacco industry or the Colombian cocaine cartels. Alexander Cockburn drug war america A "just war" is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience. Alexander Cockburn deception self war The travel writer seeks the world we have lost - the lost valleys of the imagination. Alexander Cockburn valleys imagination travel Nothing can inspire religious duty or animation but religion. Alexander Cockburn religious inspire religion Regulation of sexual behavior Alexander Cockburn regulation behavior social Despair is the central part of the psychopathology. For the handmaiden of gossip is treachery. Alexander Cockburn treachery gossip despair No foundation that I am aware of has hired ex-journalists to promote a thoroughgoing inquiry. Alexander Cockburn journalist inquiry foundation
