Christopher Hitchens Quotes
Terrorism works better as a tactic for dictatorships, or for would-be dictators, than for revolutionaries .
Hitchens, Christopher. Why Orwell Matters. Basic Books, 2002.
Belafonte was on stage with Hugo Chavez, the autocratic president of Venezuela and a patent demagogue who constantly attacked Bush and the American government. Other than an entertainer who knows little about politics making an over the top attack on the president this quotation is ironic because he was at the time on the stage with and supporting one of the two most autocratic dictators of the Western Hemisphere—Hugo Chavez. In that context, the accusation was as absurd as it can get.
Porfirio Diaz - the longtime dictator of Mexico stole the election of 1910 and had his opponent Francisco Madero arrested and imprisoned. Madero got out, crossed the border to San Antonio, and issued this declaration which started the Mexican Revolution. See {613620} for the statement that declared the Revolution.
Historically, most dictators have announced their worst intentions and in many cases were not believed by much of the world who then learned that they had made a serious error.
Soon he had the power of a dictator but he didn’t force his will on the vast majority of the Cubans. His decrees made all the wealthy and the cronies of the dictator Batista outraged and most of them left Cuba. He was a dynamic demagogue and the people handed him dictatorial powers which he did not reject. He was so popular that he was the only leader in the Americas who would give 4 hour speeches and move through the streets without any bodyguards until the United States and dissident expatriates tried to assassinate him. With all that popularity, none the less he would not allow open criticism of his regime and jailed many political opponents. So he indeed became a dictator but never needed the machine gun to maintain power.
This quotation was extremely damaging to Russian Communism at the time. Goldman had been extremely supportive of the initial Russian Revolution and was an enthusiastic Marxist. She was not the typical conservative who would attack the revolution no matter what the outcome.
Prevented by the Military from ever taking office. She was commenting on recent attacks against minority Muslims by the majority Buddhists and one of the major reasons she claimed was the lack of trust in the Muslim community that had developed during the period of military dictatorship.
Christopher Eric Hitchens was an English-American intellectual, polemicist, and socio-political critic, who expressed himself as an author, orator, essayist and columnist. He wrote, co-wrote, edited or co-edited over 30 books, including five of essays on culture, politics and literature. Having contributed to several publications, he is broadly regarded as one of the most influential atheists of all time.
