Daniel Ellsberg Quotes

People are so docile right now. It is almost as if good government means when the politicians lie to us for our own good, for the public good, and bad government is when politicians lie for their own selfish interests.

All governments lie, including our own—under Democrats and Republicans.

The more powerful government becomes, the more abuses it commits and the more lies it must tell.

Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.

You can't believe the government - on anything. And you especially can't believe them when they're talking about important stuff.

Out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing: you can't trust the government; you can't believe what they say; and you can't rely on their judgment. And the implicit infallibility of presidents, which has been an accepted thing in America, is badly hurt by this, because it shows that people do things the President wants to do even though it's wrong, and the President can be wrong.

I've always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government's basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I've come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office.

I think the truth is always interesting, but with politicians, you don't get to see much of that.

I hate politics. What they say and what they do is completely different.

The message is pretty clear: Americans are sick and tired of the doubletalk coming out of Washington, of us going home and saying we're conservative and then coming up here and voting for 10,000 earmarks. We can't fool America anymore; the media is too good. They're reporting what we're really doing.

We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.

I guess what bothers me so much about what I now see going on in both Washington and in Texas is an effort to keep people from finding out about the mistakes of lawmakers and then when they're uncovered, an effort to fool people and pretend there was nothing wrong.

Those are just some of the people whom we interviewed in the documentary, but that should provide you with a good sense of the credibility of the individuals who bolster the case that this administration lied us into a war.

People are entitled to believe the government is constantly lying to them, but it isn't.

When I went off to the army when I was 17 years old, I believed in America and the rights of freedom. But today I believe my government is lying to the American people and that my president, George Bush, is a criminal.

I can see through almost any scam, especially one perpetrated by the federal government. I can see through it... they can't pull the wool over my eyes, it's absolutely freakin' impossible to pull the wool over my eyes about the government.

I was cranking out that bullshit on Nixon's crime policy before he was elected. And it was bullshit too. And we knew it.

... political pornography.

It is the oldest story in the coverage of Government: The failure to tell the truth.

Lying is particularly prevalent in democratic states, where leaders need the support of the citizenry in order to execute their policies.

The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust government statements. I had no idea until then that you could not rely on them.

A lot of young people don't have a lot of faith in politicians. You can't depend on what they say. They talk in circles. They don't speak the kind of language that has truth to them. I'm speaking differently.

We live in a time when fictitious election results elect a fictitious president. We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.

Foreign governments want to lie to the American people.

Rhe language of politics is experienced by most as spin with the assumption of dishonesty.