Lloyd Cutler Quotes

Corporate America has conceived a Bicentennial plan to manipulate, the mass psychology of an entire nation back into conformity with its vision of what the American life should be The strategy will be to speak of the greatness of America to those who feel insignificant; to speak of patriotic commitment to those who feel isolated and contused. The long range goal is to convince people that the problems facing America can be solved by existing institutions.

There are those who wrap themselves in flags and blow the tinny trumpet of patriotism as a means of fooling the people.

Anti-Americanism from abroad would not be such a problem if Americans were united in standing up for their own country.

The tactic of leading people into... a war that doesn't make any sense by telling them they are under attack, and if they raise any objection they're unpatriotic, is a very old tactic. And it doesn't intimidate me.

Unfortunately, religion, like patriotism, is easy to misuse for political purposes.

I think the reaction to a World War II situation would be the same today as it was in 1942. Initially, people would question, but once patriotism got stirred up, the whole thing would gather momentum and we'd all pull together.

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.

Restrain our citizens from embarking individually in a war in which their country takes no part …. How desirable, then, must it be in a Government like ours to see its citizens adopt individually the views, the interests, and the conduct which their country should pursue, divesting themselves of those passions and partialities which tend to lessen useful friendships and to embarrass and embroil us in the calamitous scenes of Europe.

Here's your enemy for this week, the government says. And some gullible Americans click their heels and salute -- often without knowing who or even where the enemy of the week is.

Waging war can benefit a leader in several ways: it can rally citizens around the flag, it can distract them from bleak economic times, and it can enrich a country’s elites.

America is always a good target for a populist. In many countries, particularly authoritative systems, if you want to get an extra bonus, you bash the Americans.

Of course the people don't want war... It is the leaders...who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along...all you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

I am always getting messages that I am paid by America, that I work for America, that I am connected with CIA... blah blah blah. I am not working for America, I am working for my country's good, but America is not an enemy for me.

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

Putin has built a mobilisation society, his sky high popularity numbers, which Donald Trump so envies, are fully dependent on being able to mobilise the population against an enemy and that imagined enemy is the United States.

Nationalism is a tool increasingly used by leaders to bolster their authority, especially amid difficult economic and political conditions.

A man thinks he is dying for his country," said Anatole France, "but he is dying for a few industrialists." But even that is saying too much. What one dies for is not even so substantial and tangible as an industrialist.

I don't know that Donald Trump is anything more to Putin than what Lenin called a poleznye durak, a useful idiot.

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.

Whenever there's a big national event that brings the country together - whether it's the Olympics, a royal wedding or the 'Bake Off' final - there are inevitably a few contrarian voices speaking out against it.

Cheap anti-Americanism will eventually have consequences.

Divide et impera must be the motto of every nation that either hates or fears us.

The only real diplomacy ever performed by a diplomat is in deceiving their own people after their dumbness has got them into a war.

Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first.

Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. When independent-thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the “Nation,” it’s time for all of us to sit up and worry.