Smedley Butler Quotes

The FBI has always supported big business and big government.

The truth is, the 'Fortune' 500 prefer lobbying to campaigning.

Corporations write the legislation. They vote on the legislation. And they give advice on how to pass their bills.

Washington is designed not to solve problems. Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution in the general interest will be frustrated and subverted by the corporate interests who feel they will be damaged by progress, fair play and justice.

That's one of the things about the Tea Party people. They think corporations have too much influence in American life and they do.

The idea that the business world's needs get ignored in Washington is perpetuated by business so it can fulfill even more of its needs, real or imagined.

In a democracy there are only two types of power: there's organized people and organized money, and organized money only wins when people aren't organized.

Money often determines not only who gets elected, but what gets done. Which voices do lawmakers listen to, the banks or home owners, coal companies, or asthma sufferers, the CEOs or the unemployed?

Corporations serve an important purpose, but telling people how to vote isn't one of them.

The corporations don't have to lobby the government anymore. They are the government.

Big corporations have money and power to make sure every rule breaks their way; people have voices and votes to push back.

If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.

The purpose of influence is to speak up for those who have no influence.

Priorities are set by legislators, regulators and industry interests. The consumer gets the left-overs.

Nothing happens in America without pressure.

A few people with a clear agenda can make a big difference in government.

Historians, studying us, will say that we allowed corporations to become the government.

Any railroad corporation has infinitely more influence in any department of government than all the human beings that live in the territory that the railroad traverses.

Our politics has more than one kind of incumbent. There are the officeholders, and there are the people and corporations that have already made it in America, that want to protect and enlarge the advantages that they get from them.

Corporate totalitarianism means total control by corporate interests. If they want a war, they get a war. If they want GMOs, they get GMOs. If they want fracking, they get fracking. If they want big banks to control our monetary policy, big banks control our monetary policy.

Big money and corporate interest drown out a lot of voices.

There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains.

Let's face it, politics in this country is coin-operated. Does that really equate to a real democracy? It's very difficult to say.

Workers know first-hand how corporate capture of government is undermining their rights and freedoms as citizens.

None of us should play party to any corporate warfare. We cannot become pawns in the hands of corporate giants' warfare to constantly bully the government, to throw misinformation to the public, tell part-truth and part-story to the public.