El Salvador Quotes

I think the difference between El Salvador and Nicaragua is that in Nicaragua you had a popular insurrection, and in El Salvador you had a revolution. ~ Bianca Jagger

in October 2014, the United States was inundated with more than fifty thousand unaccompanied children from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. "They're fleeing from threats and violence in their home countries," noted Vox.com, "where things have gotten so bad that many families believe that they have no choice but to send their children on the long, dangerous journey north." Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador are among the most environmentally degraded and deforested regions in Central America. They cut their forests; we got their kids. It ~ Thomas L. Friedman

There was the situation in Nicaragua where the Sandinistas had taken over a couple of years earlier. There was a civil war going on in El Salvador and there was a similar situation in Guatemala. So Honduras was in a rather precarious geographic position indeed. ~ John Negroponte

...it was becoming obvious that the war he had been anticipating, "in three to five years" might have already begun, as many wars do begin, he said, not with a major event reported in the news but with sufferings barely noticed: an unjust law, a murder, a peaceful protest march attacked by police. It begins, according to Leonel, with poverty endured by many and corruption benefiting the few, with crimes unpunished, a hardening of positions, the failure of peaceful means of appeal and redress. ~ Carolyn Forche

Christians should put survival of the planet ahead of national security...Here is the mystery of our global responsibility: that we are in communion with Christ- and we are in communion with all people...The fact that the people of Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Russia, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia are our brothers and sisters is not obvious. People kill each other by the thousands and do not see themselves as brothers and sisters. If we want to be real peace-makers, national security cannot be our primary concern. Our primary concern should be survival of humanity, the survival of the planet, and the health of all people. Whether we are Russians, Iraqis, Ethiopians, or North Americans, we belong to the same human family that God loves. And we have to start taking some risks- not just individually, but risks of a more global quality, risks to let other people develop their own independence, risks to share our wealth with others and invite refugees to our country, risks to offer sanctuary- because we are people of God ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras have all agreed to send additional consular officers from Guatemala, from Honduras, from El Salvador, send them to the U.S. border so that we can more quickly and humanely identify unaccompanied children and process their individual removal. ~ Joe Biden

By the late 1970s, repression and economic chaos were causing increasing unrest throughout Latin America. Army strongmen were forced to cede power in Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. ~ Stephen Kinzer

I don't claim to know Israel. I don't speak Hebrew; my contacts are pretty limited. But I didn't know Vietnam; I didn't know Nicaragua, El Salvador or Honduras. It doesn't mean you can't reach your conclusions. ~ Norman Finkelstein

Since the advent of the atomic bomb, the United States has always needed two kinds of enemies. On one level, it has needed a tactical enemy that it can go out and fight in the field in a shooting war. Since 1945, these enemies have been created and appeared as North Korea, North Vietnam, Grenada, El Salvador, Panama, Iraq and now Colombia. On another level, however, the US needs a strategic enemy that will justify outrageous expenditures of capital for strategic weapon systems like ICBMs, Trident submarines and "Star Wars" missile defence systems. ~ Michael Ruppert

What were he and his friends doing, really, other than hanging from a branch, sticking their tongues out to catch the sweetness? He thought about the people he knew, with their excellent young bodies, their summerhouses, their cool clothes, their potent drugs, their liberalism, their orgasms, their haircuts. Everything they did was either pleasurable in itself or engineered to bring pleasure down the line. Even the people he knew who were "political" and who protested the war in El Salvador did so largely in order to bathe themselves in an attractively crusading light. And the artists were the worst, the painters and the writers, because they believed they were living for art when they were really feeding their narcissism. Mitchell had always prided himself on his discipline. He studied harder than anyone he knew. But that was just his way of tightening his grip on the branch. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

When the first contingents of U.S. troops were being sent to Saudi Arabia, in August of 1990, Corporal Jeff Patterson, a twenty-two-year-old Marine stationed in Hawaii, sat down on the runway of the airfield and refused to board a plane bound to Saudi Arabia. He asked to be discharged from the Marine Corps:
I have come to believe that there are no justified wars. . . . I began to question exactly what I was doing in the Marine Corps about the time I began to read about history. I began to read up on America's support for the murderous regimes of Guatemala, Iran, under the Shah, and El Salvador. . . . I object to the military use of force against any people, anywhere, any time. ~ Howard Zinn

I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me I will rise again in the people of El Salvador. ~ Oscar Romero

Most social revolutions begin peaceably. Why would it be other-wise? Who would not prefer to assemble and demonstrate rather than engage in mortal combat against pitiless forces that enjoy every advantage in mobility and firepower? Revolutions in Russia, China, Vietnam, and El Salvador all began peacefully, with crowds of peasants and workers launching nonviolent protests only to be met with violent oppression from the authorities. Peaceful protest and reform are exactly what the people are denied by the ruling oligarchs. The dissidents who continue to fight back, who try to defend themselves from the oligarchs' repressive fury, are then called "violent revolutionaries" and "terrorists. ~ Michael Parenti

Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a member of the Salvadoran aristocracy. He could not have risen to the top of the church hierarchy otherwise. But after he began voicing critical remarks about the war and concerned comments about the poor, he was assassinated. ~ Michael Parenti

During the Reagan Administration, so much attention was devoted to fighting Marxism in Nicaragua and El Salvador that Washington lost sight of longer-term challenges in other countries. ~ Stephen Kinzer

Indeed, within Castro's periphery there evolved a bizarre mutation known oxymoronically as "liberation theology," where priests and even some bishops adopted "alternative" liturgies enshrining the ludicrous notion that Jesus of Nazareth was really a dues-paying socialist. For a combination of good and bad reasons (Archbishop Romero of El Salvador was a man of courage and principle, in the way that some Nicaraguan "base community" clerics were not), the papacy put this down as a heresy. Would that it could have condemned fascism and Nazism in the same unhesitating and unambiguous tones. ~ Christopher Hitchens

Just like the strangers who'd fed me in El Salvador or South Africa, I was going to have to see and understand the hunger of other, different men and women, and make a gesture of welcome, and eat with them. And just as I hadn't "deserved" any of what had been given to me - the fish, the biscuits, the tea so abundantly poured out back in those years - I didn't deserve communion myself now. I wasn't getting it because I was good. I wasn't getting it because I was special. I certainly didn't get to pick who else was good enough, holy enough, deserving enough, to receive it. It wasn't a private meal. The bread on that Table had to be shared with everyone in order for me to really taste it. ~ Sara Miles

If you liked El Salvador, you're going to love Colombia. It's the same death squads, the same military aid, and the same whitewash from Washington. ~ Carlos Salinas De Gortari

Fear and hatred are the legacy of Ronald Reagan. America's vision of peace and freedom [is being] blasted by the guns of the U.S. Navy in Lebanon, the guns of U.S. paratroopers in Grenada, and the guns of U.S. helicopters in Honduras and El Salvador. ~ Alan Cranston

I'm still the same person I've always been. I can't say exactly what I'll do; I'm an excessive person. Talk about violence
I don't do anything violent. Talk about violence, what's going on in Nicaragua? What's going on in El Salvador? That's violent. What are they doing to the planet with chemicals and acid rain? That's violent. What are people doing to each other? Raping. That's violent. I'm striking out at ac icon that has no life. There's a big difference between what has life and what doesn't. I mean. I've been a vegetarian for 16 years. ~ Wendy O. Williams

In El Salvador, when neighbors were disappeared, tortured or killed, people doubted their own knowledge of the victims, and worried there must have been some secret guilt involved to deserve such punishment! That's how political terror succeeds. ~ Mimi Kennedy

Propaganda campaigns in general have been closely attuned to elite interests. The Red scare of 1919-20 have served well to abort the union-organizing drive that followed World War I in the sell and other industries. The Truman-McCarthy Red scare helped inaugurate the Cold War and the permanent war economy, and it also served to weaken the progressive coalition of the New Deal years. The chronic focus on the plight of Soviet dissidents, on enemy killings in Cambodia, and on the Bulgarian Connection helped weaken the Vietnam syndrome, justify a huge arms buildup and a more aggressive foreign policy, and divert attention from upward redistribution of income that was the heart of Reagan's domestic economic program. The recent propaganda-disinformation attacks on Nicaragua have been needed to avert eyes from the savagery of the war in El Salvador and to justify the escalating U.S. investment in counterrevolution in Central America. ~ Noam Chomsky

Also, people are not often aware of the way the United States' policies influence what happens in places like Haiti or El Salvador or Nicaragua. Or in Columbia right now. ~ Edwidge Danticat

Fresno Bulldogs: This gang is one of the few California Hispanic gangs not to claim allegiance to the Surenos or Nortenos. Latin Kings: This Chicago-based group consists of more than 160 cliques in 30 states and has as many as 35,000 members. Mara Salvatrucha (or M.S. 13): This violent Hispanic organization has origins in El Salvador. It has roughly 8,000 members in the United States and another 20,000 outside the United States. Bloods: With its roots in Los Angeles, this African American street gang exists in 123 cities and 33 states. Crips: Also founded in Los Angeles, this African American gang exists in 40 states and has 30,000 to 35,000 members. Gangster Disciples: This Chicago-based African American gang is active in at least 31 states and has more than 25,000 members. Vice Lord Nation: This Chicago-based African American gang has around 30,000 members in 28 states. ~ Steven Briggs

(Note: The following was written in 2003, before the full implication of US military commitment in Afghanistan and Iraq could be fully appreciated. The passage also predates US drone attacks against targets in Pakistan and Yemen - to say nothing of Israeli affairs since 2003. It is unknown if and how the author's comments would change if he were writing the same today.)

The value of Israel to the United States as a strategic asset has been much disputed. There have been some in the United States who view Israel as a major strategic ally in the region and the one sure bastion against both external and regional enemies. Others have argued that Israel, far from being a strategic asset, has been a strategic liability, by embittering U.S. relations with the Arab world and causing the failure of U.S. policies in the region.

But if one compares the record of American policy in the Middle East with that of other regions, one is struck not by its failure but by its success. There is, after all, no Vietnam in the Middle East, no Cuba or Nicaragua or El Salvador, not even an Angola. On the contrary, throughout the successive crises that have shaken the region, there has always been an imposing political, economic, and cultural American presence, usually in several countries - and this, until the Gulf War of 1991, without the need for any significant military intervention. And even then, their presence was needed to rescue the victims of an inter-Arab aggression, un ~ Bernard Lewis

i remember el salvador, /n it's horse shit, like i tell you.
i stopped chasing the messiahs /n madonnas - wised up,
set myself straight.
i've laid em /n balled em in every half-way house south of biloxi,
every 10 cent bed west of tulsa, fucked /n slobbered myself stupid on swingsets, greyhounds
/n gas station floors the world over.
i've split em in half
from head to ass
in elevator shafts, plus-size fitting rooms,
in the lobbies of sheraton inns
/n kfc parking lots - fucked em everywhere
every way that i could.
someone else can fuck em now.
i'm done w/ el salvador.
i know her militias
her perfume, munitions,
her missing hubcaps /n posters of paris.
i know her goyas, her barricades,
her paintboxes
/n bookshelves
of baudelaire,
her banners, her bullshit /n paris can keep her. ~ Brandon Thomas DiSabatino

In our times, significantly, the three outstanding voices against violence have been silenced by murder - Mahatma Gandhi in India, Archbishop Romero in El Salvador, and Dr. Martin Luther King, here at home. ~ Millicent Fenwick

Even innocent people find themselves in trouble, Adolfina is innocent. We're all innocent. The only ones at fault for the bad things that are happening are the authorities. They with their way of being. Their behavior. Yes, the only ones who go to jail or end up wounded or dead along the roads are the poor. And that's because the authorities have a predilection--they know who to hassle. They exist to boss the poor around. To order the poor about, to beat up on the poor and to carry them off as if they were animals. Someday the good life they're living will end. Always doing it to the people, always. They've never suffered the slightest hurt. That's where they get their pride from. Once they're in uniform they think they're kings of the world, and they themselves say they're disposed to anything ~ Manlio Argueta

I love soccer. My father is from Argentina and my mother is from El Salvador. I grew up watching Argentinean soccer. I get really worked up watching soccer. It's in my blood. ~ J. D. Pardo

The evidence is now clear that the majority of people coming across the border are not from Mexico. They're coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. Those countries are the source of the people that are now coming in its majority. ~ Marco Rubio

I have my three brothers, and then I have my adopted sister from El Salvador, who is actually the oldest. My brother and I were already born, and then my parents adopted my sister from El Salvador during the war and had two more kids. ~ Carrie Coon

Children are my pet cause. I have a foster child in El Salvador, and whenever I'm home, I work for the Adam Walsh Foundation, which finds missing children. I also do some hospital visits and other things for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. ~ Jane Badler

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it. ~ Salvador Dali

Women in most countries have not achieved much, because they can't be liberated under the patriarchal, capitalist, imperialist and military system that determines the way we live now, and which is governed by power, not justice, by false democracy, not real freedom. ~ Nawal El Saadawi

Although I was raised in Canada and the U.K., my roots are in Egypt through my father, in a family line that stretches back generations and runs along the Nile, from the concrete of Cairo to the coast of Alexandria. ~ Shereen El Feki

I wonder what of me there is in you. ~ Amal El-Mohtar

Folks around here call us el destinos.
They like to say we came from the stars. And when I stare up at the infinite heavens stretched out above us like a shroud, it's hard to imagine we came from anywhere else. ~ Leslye Walton

Considering how bad men are, it is wonderful how well they behave. ~ Salvador De Madariaga

Missing you is worse than Pittsburgh. ~ Salvador Plascencia

It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning. ~ Salvador Dali

There's a kind of time travel in letters, isn't there? I imagine you laughing at my small joke; I imagine you groaning; I imagine you throwing my words away. Do I have you still? Do I address empty air and the flies that will eat this carcass? You could leave me for five years, you could return never - and I have to write the rest of this not knowing. ~ Amal El-Mohtar

My father was no different from a king except for one thing."

"And what was that?"

"He never taught me to kill. He left me to learn it alone as I went through life."

"Did life teach you to kill?"

"Of course it did."

"And have you killed anybody yet?"

"Yes, I have."

He stared at me for a brief moment, laughed and then said, "I can't believe that someone like you can kill."

"Why not?"

"Because you are too gentle."

"And who said to kill does not require gentleness?"

He looked into my eyes again, laughed, and said, "I cannot believe that you are capable of killing anything, even a mosquito."

"I might not kill a mosquito, but I can kill a man. ~ Nawal El Saadawi

The need to belong fuels our fear of not being good enough! EL ~ Evinda Lepins

I'm Egyptian and Muslim, but I grew up in the West, far from my Arab roots. I began 'Sex and the Citadel' to help outsiders - like myself - to better comprehend this pivotal part of the world, up-close and personal. ~ Shereen El Feki

We'll be back, with more ashes for you!" el jefe had shouted. "You ~ John Irving

One of the ex-sucias publishes a poem about you online. It's called El Puto ~ Junot Diaz

What, whom we put our hope in determines our stability! EL ~ Evinda Lepins

Amé, fuí amado, el sol acarició mi faz.
¡Vida, nada me debes! ¡Vida, estamos en paz!
I loved, I was loved, the sun stroked my face.
Life, you owe me nothing! Life, we are at peace! ~ Amado Nervo

Our mornings were never "rise and shine." They were "rise and fight." They were loud and ravaging. They were heavy and unnerving, like the after-math of a war, with unresolved territorial disputes.
They were never serene, but they were beautiful. More beautiful than the smile you wear when you step out of the shower, more tempting than the sight of you brewing coffee from across the kitchen bar, more promising than a glorious victory, bigger than all our tumultuous past. Bigger than you. Bigger than I. ~ Malak El Halabi

We're fighting internal struggles, I am the cancer for my own cure. ~ El-P

Don't fall...enjoy your life affair! ~ Amina El Karamany

The drug lord is on the run. His name is El Chapo. Donald Trump is in a Twitter feud with this Mexican drug lord. It's historic - the first time Americans have ever sided with a Mexican drug lord. ~ Conan O'Brien

The language of art is celestial in origin and can only be understood by the chosen. ~ El Greco

Each person leaves a legacy--a single, small piece of herself, which makes richer each individual life and the collective life of humanity as a whole. But do not despair, for despair is a despicable and bourgeois affectation; we must not allow it. As for what happens next, well, as the Cuban poet Regino Pedroso once said, "como forjamos el hierro, forjaremos días nuevos": as we hammer out iron, we shall hammer out new days. ~ John Nichols

Wars have never hurt anybody except the people who die. ~ Salvador Dali

Unlike the river and the bush and the beasts and birds of the natural world, the lipstick did not interest her; it held no promise of adventure. ~ Omar El Akkad

I train very hard, until I am sick. Sometimes I train like a foolish man who has no mind. ~ Hicham El Guerrouj

Only gravity can hold me down; only myself can hold me back." ~ Amunhotep El Bey ~ Amunhotep El Bey

I want to be known as a professional weirdo. There aren't many Salvador Dalis or Buckminster Fullers left. If I become popular enough, I can establish the next step for records. ~ Todd Rundgren

When your will power is gone, you are helpless. ~ El DeBarge

The true painter must be able, with the most usual things, to have the most unusual ideas. ~ Salvador Dali

What will happen if you don't think about it? May be nothing and me be every thing. So let us be positive that make thinks go easy ~ El Hadi M. Suliman

Freedom is found in submitting to convictions, not bowing down to our fears!
EL ~ Evinda Lepins