Cooperation is Open to Everyone…
Early Soviet poster
1920s
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You can tell much about someone by what they find inspirational… the following inspired me… may it, at least, illuminate my thought for you; at best, may it inspire you as well…
BMD
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My objection to Liberalism (modern “conservatism”) is this… it’s the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind… namely, politics… of philosophical ideas instead of political principles.
British PM Benjamin Disraeli
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If we look at the problems that we need to resolve, one of the biggest is the huge income gap between the people at the top and the bottom of the scale. Combating poverty is obviously one of our top priorities in the immediate term, and we still have to do a lot to improve our pension system, too, because the correlation between pensions and the average wage is still lower here than in Europe. The gap between incomes at the top and bottom end of the scale is still high here… a 15.6 to 15.7-fold difference. This is less than in the United States today (they have a figure of 15.9) but more than in the UK or Italy (where they have 13.6 to 13.7). However, this remains a big gap for us, and fighting poverty is one of our biggest priorities.
Russian PM Vladimir Putin
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Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong.
Canadian PM John Diefenbaker
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Democracy is the wholesome and pure air without which a socialist public organisation can’t live a full-blooded life.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachyov
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We wish to control big business so as to secure, amongst other things, good wages for the wage-workers and reasonable prices for the consumers. Wherever in any business the prosperity of the businessman is obtained by lowering the wages of his workmen and charging an excessive price to the consumers we wish to interfere and stop such practises. We won’t submit to that kind of prosperity any more than we’ll submit to prosperity obtained by swindling investors or getting unfair advantages over business rivals.
US President Theodore Roosevelt
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We’ve never quarrelled with anyone, and we’ve never caused any problems to anyone. Our hearts are always open to those who come with good intent. This year made us more confident that we’ve chosen the right path. Sometimes, I think what an interesting thing history is! Those who once lectured us, now, speak with respect of the Byelorussian development model. Today, as the “infection” in the world economy sparks off a severe crisis, we see that what we’ve been doing all these years was right. Sometimes, we were groping our way forward, relying on intuition. However, the main thing for us has always been that we should live by our own intelligence, by our own labour, and in the interests of our people. Do you remember how harshly we were criticised for subsidising the rural areas? However, when the food crisis occurred, the countries that could provide food for themselves by their own means were the winners. Those included our Byelorussia, for we supported our farmers in every possible way. Many told us, with some urgency, to remodel our economy on the model of the private market. However, we decided not to trust in an often-volatile market. We’re didn’t provoke today’s crisis, which is sending shockwaves all around the world. On the contrary, the crisis came out of an ideology that we’ve always resolutely fought. The coming year will be difficult, but Byelorussians are accustomed to difficulties. We’ve faced harder times. We’ve not only managed not to fall into the abyss; we’ve managed to build a new Byelorussia with a reliable safety net.
Byelorussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko
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Reconquer the streets, the markets… the public spaces… with the same message of opposition… “We’re devastated, but we won’t give up”. With torches and roses, we deliver this message to the world… “We don’t let fear break us… and we don’t let the fear of fear silence us.
Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg
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You’re all idiots… you believe that you can learn from your own experience; I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others to avoid their mistakes.
German Reichskanzler Otto von Bismarck
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As I’ve said before, the ever-more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor, and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illnesses, poverty, or hunger.
Cuban President Fidel Castro Ruz
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Mark my word; if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] Party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know; I’ve tried to deal with them.
US Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ)
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A lot of people give out the sob story, “Oh, US imperialism, imperialism, we’re poor because of imperialism …” People don’t realise that arrogant local élites contributed to the detrimental effects of American imperialism. If people were honest and decent, if our élite had stood up for our sovereignty, it wouldn’t have happened. Our élite contributed to it.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
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Power isn’t an end in itself. Power’s only a tool that we use to preserve life, peace, and order; therefore, even when we condemn tyranny and despotism in all its forms, we can’t help but conclude that a weak government is a dangerous thing. Don’t forget that a power vacuum leads to anarchy; ergo, the government shouldn’t ever even appear to be weak.
Russian PM Graf Pyotr Stolypin
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Every day I become more convinced, there’s no doubt in my mind, as many intellectuals have said, that it’s necessary to transcend capitalism. However, we can’t transcend capitalism through capitalism itself; we must do it through socialism, true socialism, with equality and justice. I’m also convinced that it’s possible to do it under democracy, but not under what Washington calls “democracy”. We have to re-invent socialism. It can’t be the kind of socialism that we saw in the Soviet Union, but it’ll emerge as we develop new systems built upon cooperation, not competition.
Venezuelan President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías
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Whatever you do, adhere to the Union. We’re a great country, and shall become one of the greatest in the universe if we preserve it; we’ll sink into insignificance and adversity if we suffer it to be broken.
Canadian PM John A MacDonald
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The time is long overdue for the Federal Reserve, President Bush, and Congress to start making fundamental changes in their economic policies, so that government begins to represent the needs of all Americans, and not just the wealthy and their lobbyists. If we don’t, I fear very much that, for the first time in the modern history of our country, the next generation will have a lower standard of living than their parents, and that would be a real tragedy.
US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
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A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead, and injured, and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn’t preventive war; that’s war. I don’t believe there’s such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn’t even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing. … It seems to me that when, by definition, a term is just ridiculous in itself, there’s no use in going any further. There are all sorts of reasons, moral, and political, and everything else, against this theory, but it’s so completely unthinkable in today’s conditions that I thought it’s no use to go any further.
Voices from Russia 
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