Democratic Confederalism Quotes

The right of self-determination of the peoples includes the right to a state of their own. However, the foundation of a state does not increase the freedom of a people. The system of the United Nations that is based on nation-states has remained inefficient. Meanwhile, nation-states have become serious obstacles for any social development. Democratic confederalism is the contrasting paradigm of the oppressed people. Democratic confederalism is a non-state social paradigm. It is not controlled by a state. At the same time, democratic confederalism is the cultural organizational blueprint of a democratic nation. Democratic confederalism is based on grassroots participation. Its decision-making processes lie with the communities. Higher levels only serve the coordination and implementation of the will of the communities that send their delegates to the general assemblies. For limited space of time they are both mouthpiece and executive institution. However, the basic power of decision rests with the local grassroots institutions. ~ Abdullah Ocalan

It is work and personal worth which make a State great both politically and industrially, and in my estimation they are to be found in largest proportions in the Democratic party. ~ Franklin Knight Lane

The Republic of Macedonia is being built on democratic ideals and values, not on ethnic groups. Those ideals and values include economic opportunities, language and educational opportunities, religious rights, and political processes. ~ Boris Trajkovski

These core principles - helping patients, preventing medical errors, promoting best practices and improving quality - are the reasons that health IT is featured in both the 2012 Republican platform and 2012 Democratic platform. ~ Sheldon Whitehouse

Obama lost his ability to push his agenda through Congress when he received what he himself called a 'shellacking' in the November 2010 elections. That shellacking was primarily the result of massive policy overreach when he had a Democratic Congress in his pocket. ~ John Podhoretz

Anarchy is not a social form, but a method of individuation. No society will concede to me more than a limited freedom and a well-being that it grants to each of its members. But I am not content with this and want more. I want all that I have the power to conquer. Every society seeks to confine me to the august limits of the permitted and the prohibited . But I do not acknowledge these limits, for nothing is forbidden and all is permitted to those who have the force and the valor.

Consequently, anarchy, which is the natural liberty of the individual freed from the odious yoke of spiritual and material rulers, is not the construction of a new and suffocating society.' It is a decisive fight against all societies-christian, democratic, socialist, communist, etc., etc. Anarchism is the eternal struggle of a small minority of aristocratic outsiders against all societies which follow one another on the stage of history. ~ Renzo Novatore

Having the Mass in one's native language is no guarantee that a person will understand the mystery of the Mass. On the contrary, if the vesture of the ceremony is too familiar, the participants too easily thinks he has mastered what it's all about. The familiar becomes the routine, the routine becomes ignored. Our own language is a comfort zone that insulates us form the shock of the Gospel, the scandal of the Cross, the lure of the unknown. I would rather have a huge dose of foreignness, of music that is not current, words that are strange, language that is archaic, hieratic gestures that are grandly incongruous to a democratic society. A person thrown into this situation knows at least that he is dealing with something utterly different and possibly far deeper than his day-to-day occupations. ~ Peter Kwasniewski

The People's democratic dictatorship needs the leadership of the working class. For it is only the working class that is most far-sighted, most selfless and most thoroughly revolutionary. The entire history of revolution proves that without the leadership of the working class revolution fails and that with the leadership of the working class revolution triumphs. ~ Mao Zedong

In England pensions used to be given to aristocrats, because aristocrats had political influence, in order to corrupt them. Here pensions are given to the great democratic mass, because they have political power, to corrupt them. ~ William Graham Sumner

The very principle of democracy is founded on the possibility of making alternative choices. There is no longer a need for democracy, since ideology made the idea that "there is no alternative" acceptable. Adherence to a meta-social principle of superior rationality allows for the elimination of the necessity and possibility of choosing. The so-called principle of the rationality of "markets" exactly fills this function in the ideology of obsolescent capitalism. Democratic practice is thus emptied of all content in the way is open to what I have called "low-intensity democracy" - that is, to electoral buffooneries where parades of majorettes take the place of programs, to the society of the spectacle. Delegitimized by these practices, politics is undone, begins to drift and loses its potential power to give meaning and coherence to alternative societal projects. ~ Samir Amin

American is the first democratic nation-state. ~ Stephen Ambrose

In a democratic state nobody transfers his natural right to another so completely that thereafter he is not to be consulted; he transfers it to the majority of the entire community of which he is part. In this way all men remain equal, as they were before in a state of nature. ~ Baruch Spinoza

We must face the ultimate contradiction that our free and democratic society was made possible by massive slave labor. ~ David Brion Davis

History proves that all dictatorships, all authoritarian forms of government are transient. Only democratic systems are not transient. Whatever the shortcomings, mankind has not devised anything superior. ~ Vladimir Putin

Throughout history, when societies face tough economic times, we have seen democratic reforms deferred, decreased trust in government, persecution of minority groups, and a general shrinking of the democratic space. ~ Samantha Power

Further more Yemen is leading pioneer in democratic practice, lots of brothers and friends testified on that. ~ Ali Abdullah Saleh

In 1992, Bill Clinton ran on a platform of 'ending welfare as we know it.' His political worldview, drawn from like-minded thinkers at the Democratic Leadership Council, was based in private sector growth and personal responsibility. ~ Nina Easton

Taiwan is a budding democracy, and the people have participated in multi-party democratic elections since 1996. ~ Todd Akin

Lasting peace and security in Iraq and Afghanistan will be achieved when we establish the conditions for democratic, economically viable nations. ~ John Warner

I don't believe in the Republican party or the Democratic party. I just believe in parties. ~ Samantha Jones

I bring to the table core Democratic values and can articulate them very strongly. I'm not someone who tries to claim the middle. ~ Cynthia Dill

There is something very consistent about governance in the Arab world. Among the Arab countries today in which there is a modicum of internal stability, each is controlled by an Arafat-type figure - an anti-democratic strongman who is able to crush all challenges to his authority. Likewise, among those Arab countries that aren't ruled by a despot, the political dynamic is also consistent: In Lebanon, Iraq, and now Gaza, sectarian violence is the dominant form of political expression. ~ Michael Totten

Leaders who formulate positive ideas and implement effective change in their community can help others overcome difficult economic and social hardships. ~ Saaif Alam

At this moment the phrase "police reform" has come into vogue, and the actions of our publicly appointed guardians have attracted attention presidential and pedestrian. You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority. The abuses that have followed from these policies - the sprawling carceral state, the random detention of black people, the torture of suspects - are the product of democratic will. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Democratic Party headquarters house elf, ~ Dennis Kucinich

Only in Brutus and his fellow-conspirators - of all Shakespearian characters - do we find the least consideration for liberty, and even then he makes the common, and perhaps in his time the unavoidable, mistake of overlooking the genuinely democratic leanings of Julius Caesar and the anti-popular character of the successful plot against him. ~ William Shakespeare

The wrong Democratic reaction to a stupid Republican utterance is to play hurt. ~ Hooman Majd

They knew that Roosevelt and the Democratic party made a difference on them, on their quality of life issues, and they believed in that. But today it is completely different. ~ Richard M. Daley

The legacy of [Martin Luther] King is the very thing that must be expanded if America is to be free and democratic in the 21st century. It's just as simple as that. ~ Cornel West

This is Democratic bedrock: we don't let people lie in the ditch and drive past and pretend not to see them dying. Here on the frozen tundra of Minnesota, if your neighbor's car won't start, you put on your parka and get the jumper cables out and deliver the Sacred Spark that starts their car. Everybody knows this. The logical extension of this spirit is social welfare and the myriad government programs with long dry names all very uninteresting to you until you suddenly need one ... ~ Garrison Keillor

What does it mean to call for a "democratic" solution if you don't have a conflict-resolution mechanism in mind?
I think it means that you have said the word "democracy," so the audience is supposed to cheer. It's not so much a propositional statement, as the equivalent of the "Applause" light that tells a studio audience when to clap. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky

I dream of a free, democratic, peaceful Tunisia, a country that can protect its developing identity. ~ Rashid Al-Ghannushi

For 70 years Democrats bitterly denied being "socialists". Bernie Sanders has done the service of exposing them. ~ A.E. Samaan