Dorothy Thompson

[delphipsmith]

Dorothy Thompson, suffragette, radio broadcaster, and war correspondent, was the first American journalist to be expelled from Germany for questioning Hitler. I recently ran across a couple of quotes by her that I really like. Both seem rather apt, the first one due to the current state of journalism with its non-substantive coverage of news and its mindless rush towards infotainment, the second due to the insistence of a certain political party to poke their noses into people's sex lives and bedrooms.

No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will. ... When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say "Heil" to him, nor will they call him "Fuhrer" or "Duce." But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of "O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!"

-- 1935, quoted in Watchdogs of Democracy? : The Waning Washington Press Corps and How it Has Failed the Public (2006) by Helen Thomas, p. 172

I know now that there are things for which I am prepared to die. I am willing to die for political freedom; for the right to give my loyalty to ideals above a nation and above a class; for the right to teach my child what I think to be the truth; for the right to explore such knowledge as my brains can penetrate; for the right to love where my mind and heart admire, without reference to some dictator’s code to tell me what the national canons on the matter are; for the right to work with others of like mind; for a society that seems to me becoming to the dignity of the human race. I shall pick no fight, nor seek to impose by force these standards on others. But let it be clear. If the fight comes unsolicited, I am not willing to die meekly, to surrender without effort. And that being so, am I still a pacifist?

-- 1937, "Dilemma of a Pacifist"

On a lighter (I guess) note, apparently the most frequent UK Google search AFTER the Brexit vote was, "What is the EU?" Probably should have done that googling BEFORE voting, guys.

Comments

[arcanetrivia]

I find it strange that a simple majority, and not even 55% at that, would allow such a thing to pass. Why wouldn't you require a supermajority?