Molly Ivins Quotes

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

The symptoms of fascist thinking are colored by environment and adapted to immediate circumstances. But always and everywhere they can be identified by their appeal to prejudice and by the desire to play upon the fears and vanities of different groups in order to gain power.

That kind of patriotism which consists in hating all other nations.

Patriotism is a sham when it lets out the howl that the people of another nation are a pack of beasts and criminals, unrelated to the human family

Governments and reactionary groups resort to nationalism, victimization, and suppression to keep foreign or offending speech at bay.

Many studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and "patriotism" . . . Extreme bigots are almost always super-patriots.

All the themes of incipient fascism are present, to some degree, in our present-day political culture: the fear of the Other, the need for a (powerless) scapegoat, including the theme of expansionism.

Extreme nationalism objectifies and dehumanizes those from other countries.

I am unable to watch the Olympics due to the blustering jingoism that drenches the event. Has England ever been quite so foul with patriotism? The 'dazzling royals' have, quite naturally, hi-jacked the Olympics for their own empirical needs, and no oppositional voice is allowed in the free press.

Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.

During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

All these stories are grist to the mill of the government because they build up a very useful war psychosis.

I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.

National pride may be a valuable possession, but when it becomes consciousness of racial superiority it ceases to be an Imperial virtue.

National sentiments can cause such sinful phenomena as aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, national exclusiveness and inter-ethnic enmity. At their extremes, these phenomena often lead to the restriction of the rights of individuals and nations, wars and other manifestations of violence

All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.

Political demagogues will seek popularity by public speeches full of insult to foreign countries, and yellow journals will seek to increase their circulation by appeals to prejudice against foreigners.

I was really upset because I was branded as an enemy alien when I'm an American.

Anti-Americanism is a pure totalitarian concept. The very notion is idiotic.

'Black Hawk Down' has such distinctive visual aplomb that its jingoism starts to feel like part of its atmosphere.

People tell me to go back to my country, and I'm an American.

The pamphlet was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.

Nationalism and patriotism are the two most evil forces that I know of in this century or in any century and cause more wars and more death and more destruction to the soul and to human life than anything else.

Immigrant: An unenlightened person who thinks one country better than another.

You must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your King, and you must treat every Frenchman as if he were the Devil himself.