The great enemy of any totalitarian regime is normalization and trade. Robert Scheer More Quotes by Robert Scheer More Quotes From Robert Scheer The fact is ... that when totalitarian nations like China and Saudi Arabia play ball with U.S. business interests, we like them just fine. But when Venezuela's freely elected president threatens powerful corporate interests, the Bush administration treats him as an enemy. Robert Scheer powerful play enemy The death of American liberalism as a significant moral force can be traced to the point in when President Bill Clinton signed legislation that effectively ended the main federal anti-poverty program and turned the fate of welfare recipients, 70 percent of whom were children, over to the tender mercies of the states. With a stroke of the pen, Clinton eliminated what remained of New Deal-era compassion for the poor and codified into law the "tough love" callousness that his Republican allies in the Congress, led by Newt Gingrich, had long embraced. Robert Scheer fate compassion children The publisher, Jeff Johnson, who has offered not a word of explanation to me, has privately told people that he hated every word that I wrote. I assume that mostly refers to my exposing the lies used by President Bush to justify the invasion of Iraq. Fortunately sixty percent of Americans now get the point, but only after tens of thousand of Americans and Iraqis have been killed and maimed as the carnage spirals out of control. My only regret is that my pen was not sharper and my words tougher. Robert Scheer iraq regret lying I happen to love America. I love this freedom and democracy. The fact is we are the ones who killed innocent people, men, women and children, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons, weapons that should have never been used, should have never been developed in the first place, you know? Robert Scheer hiroshima-and-nagasaki men children Today anyone on the Internet can find out more about what you read, think, and earn than the secret police of Stalin or Hitler could have learned. Robert Scheer police secret thinking At least 3% of the signers of the Constitution must have been gay, since that's the low estimate for any population sample. It was probably higher, given that they were a pretty talented bunch and wore wigs. Robert Scheer wigs population gay The paper nominated me 12 or 13 times for the Pulitzer Prize. Robert Scheer prize paper If the war on terror is endless, you could forget about democracy. Robert Scheer democracy forget war Much of what candidates have to do is raise money and appeal to constituencies or interest groups that can provide that money. Robert Scheer appeals groups interest I was a finalist for the Pulitzer as a reporter. Robert Scheer reporters I was able to do something that people cant do these days, which is to have quality time with the guys who were trying to be president and a number of them who got the job. Robert Scheer numbers jobs people Alternative media is no longer really alternative, and we're no longer that dependant upon newspapers, like the Los Angeles Times, for our information. Robert Scheer alternatives information media The journalist's job is to get the story by breaking into their offices, by bribing, by seducing people, by lying, by anything else to break through the palace guard. Robert Scheer media jobs lying He [Reagan] likes to tell jokes and that's why he told the ethnic joke that got him into some trouble. Perhaps if reporters didn't overreact to a politician's telling the very same joke they routinely hear and tell in the city room, we'd get more humor. Robert Scheer likes cities rooms And new people come in, and it doesn't go along with their politics, and they fire me, end the column, silence a voice in Los Angeles. They can't silence it nationally, but they are able to do it there. Robert Scheer voice fire people Eisenhower provided the first break in the Cold War, by bringing Khrushchev to the United States, in humanizing the Soviets; and then Nixon, by making the opening to China; and then Reagan, even meeting in Reykjavik with Gorbachev and acknowledging that nuclear weapons are a horror. So I won't accept that Republicans just escalate. Republicans, at least when they were more moderate, they were maybe even more isolationist, they sometimes brought sanity to the debate. We don't have that now. We have - all these Republicans have gone off the neoconservative deep end. Robert Scheer nuclear united-states war I teach at USC, and it's obvious to anyone who teaches college students that they don't cover much modern history and certainly not the modern presidency. Robert Scheer usc college teaching It had run as a column - I had worked at the paper since 1976, but the column had been running for 13 years, and I think it was a strong column, criticizing the war when the paper was supporting it. Robert Scheer strong running war When Howard Dean started saying some honest things, they hung him. Robert Scheer dean honest hung Eisenhower was a pretty peace-oriented president. Truman was a pretty hawkish. I would argue, if we had more time, I would argue Truman had a lot to do with getting the Cold War going. Robert Scheer president arguing war
