Ai Weiwei Quotes

In early America, the political parties had their own newspapers where “truth” was not an important journalistic virtue. Red scares and other fears of foreign conspiracies are as old as our nation. In 1798 the Federalists accused Vice President Thomas Jefferson, among others, of being in contact with the foreign conspirators and printed details of a "manufactured" plot to massacre the citizens of Philadelphia in one of their controlled newspapers. The nation was so alarmed that the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts were passed by Congress a few months later. These were probably the greatest infringements on American civil liberties in our history.

Milosevic had been rejected at the polls, but the question was whether of not he would give up power. He finally did.

This is one of the rare proverbs dealing with the importance of intelligence and foreknowledge.

The bipartisan Presidential Commission had unanimously made 41 recommendations to prevent future terrorist attacks. While the Bush Administration and Congress implemented a few many of the more critical ones were left unaddressed. The commission on its final day issued a report card giving failing grades to both the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress.

The AMC stated that Alamoudi, a well-known supporter of Hezbollah and Hamas, was not acting or speaking on its behalf and apologized to the reporter.

The reporters were not intimidated. They published not only the story about the joke but the threats of the Chief of Staff who later apologized publicly to minimize the political damage. The quotation is important for two reasons. First it illustrates something that occurs in all countries—political officials intimidating journalists to suppress a story they do not want public. Second, the vibrancy of the Israel freedom of the press, where even the highest ranking general in the nation could not intimidate ordinary journalists. In most counties, the journalists would have been imprisoned, and possible tortured and killed if they crossed such a powerful man. In many democracies, the journalists would have been fired.