Global War on Disinformation
John Rawls (1921 – 2002):
Those who have been favored by nature, whoever they are, may gain from their good fortune, only on terms that improve the situation of those who have lost out.
Margaret Thatcher (1925 – 2013):
There is no such thing as society.
There are [only] individual men and women, and there are families.
Karl Marx (1818 – 83):
Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations — the relations within which these individuals stand.
(Grundrisse, 1858)
Ayn Rand (1905 – 1982):
There is no such entity as:
- the tribe, or
- the public.
The tribe, or society, is only a number of individual men.
Nothing can be good for the tribe as such.
Good and value pertain only to … an individual living organism, not to a disembodied aggregate of relationships.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 – 59):
When all the members of a community are independent of, or indifferent to, each other, the cooperation of each of them can only be obtained by paying for it; this infinitely multiplies the purposes to which wealth may be applied, and increases its value. …
Men are no longer bound together by ideas, but by interests; and it would seem as if human opinions were reduced to a sort of intellectual dust, scattered on every side, unable to collect, unable to cohere.
(pp 461 & 516)
It is both necessary and desirable that the government of a democratic people should be active and powerful.
[Our] object should not be:
- to render it weak or indolent, but
- solely to prevent it from abusing its aptitude and its strength.
(Democracy in America, 1835, p 867, emphasis added)
Thomas Paine (1737 – 1809):
[Government,] even in its best state, is but a necessary evil …
(Common Sense, 1776)
Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004):
Government is not the solution …
Government is the problem. …
I continue to look to the Scriptures … for fulfilment and for guidance.
Indeed, it is an incontrovertible fact, that all the complex and horrendous questions confronting us at home, and worldwide, have their answer in that single Book. …
Edmund Burke (1729 – 97):
To … love the little platoon we belong to, in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections.
It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love:
- to our country, and [ultimately]
- to mankind.
(1790)
Global War on Disinformation
Robert Brulle [Sociologist, Drexel University]:
There is no statistical relationship between providing [scientific] information about climate change and levels of public concern. …
[What we really] need to focus on [are the elite cues: opinion leaders] coming to some sort of agreement that climate change is real [and] that we need to address it — before you’re going to see [any change in] public opinion …
(Inside the Climate Change “Countermovement", background interview for Climate of Doubt, PBS Frontline, 30 September, 2012)
George Marshall (1964):
In 2012 … global investment in renewable energy [reached] $244 billion [while] investment into exploration and development of new [oil and gas] reserves broke the $1 trillion barrier.
(Don't Even Think About It, 2014, p 174)
