Janeane Garofalo Quotes

Famines are easy to prevent if there is a serious effort to do so, and a democratic government, facing elections and criticisms from opposition parties and independent newspapers, cannot help but make such an effort. Not surprisingly, while India continued to have famines under British rule right up to independence... they disappeared suddenly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy and... a free press and an active political opposition constitute the best early-warning system a country threaten by famines can have.

Diversity in media is something that is intrinsic to a democratic society. We do not want the whole media owned by one person.

The United States, along with other major democracies, is moving swiftly toward media control by a handful of gigantic multi-national corporations.

The freedom of the press throughout the world where the capitalists rule, is the freedom to buy up papers, the freedom to buy writers, to buy and manufacture public opinion in the interest of the capitalists.

I don't like to sit around whining about the corporate media, how they control everything, own everything. We already know that.

The U.S. corporate media, otherwise known as the "free press," is that hollow pillar on which contemporary American democracy rests.

Democracy is one person, one vote and a full discussion of the issues that affect us. Oligarchy is billionaires buying elections, voter suppression and a concentrated corporate media determining what we see, hear and read.

One of the best things that's come out of the Seattle protests is the birth of the Independent Media Center. It's not as though the independent media movement wasn't already there, but it's given it another jump-start. There's the feeling that not only should we report on our underground culture and our own situation, but now we have to start telling people what's really going on at a time when everything from CNN to USA Today is as tightly controlled as Tass or Pravda.

Polls are the corporate media's standardized tests to determine how well we have learned what it has taught us.

In the United States, both the upper levels of the Republican and Democratic Parties are in the pay of the corporate media and communication giants.

Because of the control of the media by corporate wealth, the discovery of truth depends on an alternative media, such as small radio stations, networks, programs. Also, alternative newspapers, which exist all over the country. Also, cable TV programs, which are not dependent on commercial advertising. Also, the internet, which can reach millions of people by-passing the conventional media.

We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country, or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia.

No substantial famine has ever occurred in a democratic country - no matter how poor.

I just wish there was more media that was trailblazing and independent. And, this to me is a big danger right now in this set up is you've got these corporations, like the New York Times, and Amazon now with the Washington Post, and Time-Warner, and all of them seem to be the same! This is what's frightening!

What a lie it is to call this a free country, where none but the unworthy and undeserving may swear.

A lot of young people are very cynical about the political framework because they see the countries that preach democracy and human rights being countries largely responsible for the problems in their region.

This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.

America was the first country in history to be founded on, people have rights. Not the divine right of kings, not the emperor's a god, or idolized, or we have to do what the dear leader says. And, expressly, that it's a system of equal rights, and then governments are instituted to secure those rights.

July 4, 1776 was the historic day on which the representatives of three millions of people vocalized Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, which gave notice to the world that they proposed to establish an independent nation on the theory that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

There are many evils in this country. The only remedy for every one of them is freedom for the nation.

Americans' right to free speech should not be proportionate to their bank accounts.

The values that we talked about, the values democracy and free speech and international norms and rule of law, respecting the ability of other countries to determine their own destiny and preserve their sovereignty and territorial integrity. Things are not something that we can set aside.

A good leader leads with compassion and love, not fear and blood. A country that harms its people because they are not happy with the leader -- is not a country that belongs to the people, but to the leader.

We're going to take on the big media, big business, and big donors that are bleeding our country dry. We're losing our jobs.

We're seeing the sort of liberal phenomenon of activists that are speaking out. And they have every right to do so. I think we need to respect that in this country. It's just part of the democratic process.