Quotes

modern satanism, with its juvenile inversions of judeo-christian symbolism and morality and devotion to ‘evil’, is a materialistic belief that belongs to the spiritual kindergarten…

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.

[Capitalism’s] concept of competitive man who seeks only to maximize wealth and power, who subjects himself to market relationships, to exploitation and external authority, is anti-human and intolerable in the deepest sense

Given that this is the case, what’s the point of looking at the psychology of leaders? It’s not like they’re interesting people. They’re usually tenth-raters: dull, insignificant people whose main quality is that they can follow orders, can sense where power is and serve it. The mechanisms by which they arrive at their beliefs are sort of transparent.

Just the other day, I heard some general explaining why we needed Stealth bombers. The interviewer was trying to ask him, “Can you mention a military mission you could use them for?” He said, “Oh, sure.” It was something like: Imagine we’ve had a nuclear exchange, and now we have to have a follow-up on the Russians. Say the missiles have been destroyed for some reason. The Stealth bombers will be in the air. They’ll be able to make it through the Russian radar and wipe out the last three people who still happen to be alive, while the two people who happen to be alive over here cheer.

Anybody who has a grey cell functioning can see what’s wrong with this. But I don’t say he didn’t believe it. In fact, it he hadn’t believed it, he couldn’t be an Air Force general. You don’t make it through if you’re not capable of concocting for yourself a system of beliefs of this sort.

Prison as a deterrent does not work. If it did, America would be the safest country on earth.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

it is often a mistake to bring one’s full powers of analysis to bear upon the words of a Magical theorist. Very likely his use of words has an individual bias, and so it is necessary to make an effort to see what simple principle lies behind his utterance. Once the principle is sensed, it should be tested in one’s own experience before being accepted. Then it may be necessary to form from it your own imperfect version which may resemble that of the aforementioned Magician, or may appear quite different…

When bad ideas have nowhere else to go, they emigrate to America and become university courses.

All these companies make millions and millions of dollars to put the Olympic rings as like a logo. I walked into 24 hour fitness the other day. They’re a multi-million dollar sponsor of the Olympic games. And they have all these Olympic rings all over the place. They know I’m an Olympic medalist. They know I’m an Olympian. They will not let me in there without paying. I have to pay to go into 24 hour fitness. I have to buy every single Gatorade bottle. That money does not go to the athletes. That money goes into a lot of really corrupt national governing bodies that bounce that money around, they give it to all their friends, and almost none of that money makes it to the athletes. USA Judo is the most corrupt organizations ever, and they hated me because I was not afraid to say it, and they always gave me as little funding as possible.

At the 2007 worlds they sent more officials and more people from their organization, and then they made most of the athletes pay for themselves to go. They only sponsorerd three athletes to go, and they sent like eleven different people. And I remember at the Pan Am games, or Pan-Am champsionships in wherever we were at, a bunch of the athletes had to pay for themselves to go and then they flew some PR girl at the last minute. Thousands of dollars just to show up and hang around. And they’re sending all their people first class, and they’re spending all this, you look at their budget and they’re spending thousands of dollars on entertainment for each other. All the people that work for this organization are sitting in these amazing hotels, and the athletes, I’m sitting in a hut. A chalet in the middle of Belgium.

All that money and none of it goes to the athletes, and the second that you’re done fighting they just give you a kick in the ass out the door. There’s nothing set in place to help the athletes after they’re done. What are you doing while you’re training your whole life? You’re not getting as much education as you could. You’re not getting as much work experience as you could. And so what happens after the Olympics Is that you have all these athletes that have no work experience, no education, and they have no health. And it’s all bullshit.

And that’s why I’m like screw everyone’s idea of ‘oh what sports are supposed to be like’. I did what sports were supposed to be like, and I was living in my car. So you know what, fine. I’m gonna talk a bunch of shit. I’m gonna pose in a couple of pictures. And I’m gonna break a couple of girl’s arms, and I’m not gonna feel the least bit sorry about it because you know what? At least I can feed my dog.

Ari Berman: What was your reaction to the healthcare ruling?

Howard Dean: I was surprised. Like many people, I was shocked that Justice Roberts sided with upholding the bill and somewhat surprised and disappointed that Justice Kennedy voted to get rid of the entire thing along with the three right-wing justices.

I was glad that the president won a victory. But this pretty much ends the debate about the nature of the private sector in the healthcare business—it’s here to stay in a very big way. This is, after all, a Republican bill. Not the Republicans that we see today, but the moderate Republican wing under Mitt Romney in Massachusetts—this is their bill. For the foreseeable future there will be those who wish we had a single-payer healthcare system, but that’s not going to happen in Washington anytime soon.