This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Real political issues cannot be manufactured by the leaders of political parties, and real ones cannot be evaded by political parties. The real political issues of the day declare themselves, and come out of the depths of that deep which we call public opinion.
Democracy is not just a counting up of votes – it is a counting up of actions. Without those on the bottom acting out there desires for justice – as the government acts out its needs, and those with power and privilege act out theirs – the scales of democracy will be off. That is why civil disobedience is not just to be tolerated – if we are to have a truly democratic society it is a necessity.
Civil disobedience | Democracy | Disobedience | Government | Justice | Necessity | Power | Society | Will | Society | Government | Privilege |
A good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at anytime in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.
Challenge | Good | Opportunity | Present | Public | System | Learn |
The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions.
Today we all realize that democracy is not a self-perpetuating virus adapted to any body politic - that was the assumption of a previous generation. Democracy as we know to be a special type of organism requiring specific nutriment materials - some economic, some social and cultural.
Of all the evils to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes, are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds are added to those of subduing the force of the people! No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
Force | Freedom | Influence | Liberty | Means | People | Power | Public | War | Parent |
Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards against improbity. It keeps the judge himself, while trying, under trial. Under the auspices of publicity, the cause in the court of law, and the appeal to the court of public opinion, are going on at the same time... It is through publicity alone that justice becomes the mother of security.
Cause | Justice | Law | Mother | Opinion | Public | Security | Soul | Time |
To make the people fittest to choose, and the chosen fittest to govern, will be to mend our corrupt and faulty education , to teach the people faith, not without virtue, temperance, modesty, sobriety, parsimony, justice; not to admire wealth or honor; to hate turbulence and ambition; to place every one his private welfare and happiness in the public peace, liberty and safety.
Ambition | Education | Faith | Hate | Honor | Justice | Liberty | Modesty | Peace | People | Public | Teach | Virtue | Virtue | Wealth | Will | Happiness |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
In a community where public services have failed to keep abreast of private consumption things are very different. Here, in an atmosphere of private opulence and public squalor, the private goods have full sway.
Public |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
What is thought to be the responsible public opinion is, at any given time, a reflection of the needs and interests of the corporate technostructure.
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
The culture of organization runs strongly to the shifting of problems to others – to an escape from personal mental effort and responsibility. This, in turns, becomes the larger public attitude. It is for others to do the worrying, take the action. In the world of the great organization, problems are not solved but passed on. And there is a further effect. The delegation process just cited adds ineluctably to the layers of command and to the prestige associated with command. That prestige is regularly measured by the number of individual subordinates.
Action | Culture | Effort | Individual | Organization | Problems | Public | Responsibility | World |
John Kenneth Galbraith, aka "Ken"
In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
Majority | Organization | Right | Wrong |
In all the more advanced communities the great majority of things are worse done by the intervention of government than the individuals most interested in the matter would do them, or cause them to be done, if left to themselves.
Cause | Government | Majority | Government |
To tax the larger incomes at a higher percentage than the smaller, is to lay a tax on industry and economy; to impose a penalty on people for having worked harder and saved more than their neighbors. It is not the fortunes which are earned, but those which are unearned, that it is for the public good to place under limitation.