The Ottoman Empire was an ugly affair, but they had the right idea. The rulers in Turkey were fortunately so corrupt that they left people alone pretty much -- were mostly interested in robbing them -- and they left them alone to run their own affairs, and their own regions and their own communities with a lot of local self determination.
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Talk titled "Prospects for Peace in the Middle East" at the University of Toledo, Ohio, March 4, 2001Noam Chomsky
Anybody interested in solving, rather than profiting from, the problems of food production and distribution will see that in the long run the safest food supply is a local food supply, not a supply that is dependent on a global economy. Nations and regions within nations must be left free — and should be encouraged — to develop the local food economies that best suit local needs and local conditions.
Wendell Berry
What did the Ottoman Empire bring to the peoples under its yoke other than massacres, oppression, and tyranny? Does anyone miss Ottomanism, providing a reason to deliver a “New Ottomanism”? And what does the “zero problems with the neighbors” policy mean? Does it mean that all neighbors should obediently do what Turkey wants them to do and satisfy Turkey’s preconditions? There are probably neighbors for whom it is quite beneficial, but we are certainly not among them.
Serzh Sargsyan
We've lost the south, that was one of the biggest fallacies. We went in there and we served the interests of one of our enemies over there, the Iranians. We propped up the Shiites, we overthrew the Sunnis, and the British didn't hold, they left. So there's more peace and less killing in southern Iraq, because all of a sudden we've allowed local control to develop more naturally. Warlords and local people are in charge, and they're more allied with Iran. But this is not a catastrophe, that's why we should deal with the Iranians in a more respectful way: if they had more control of the oil they'd want to sell, what they're gonna do with it, drink it? That's why the balance of power and the idea of self-determination should be worked out by them, not by us. As long as we do it, there'd be resentment and that is the source of the hatred towards us.
Ron Paul
This is the criminal left that belongs not in a dormitory, but in a penitentiary. The criminal left is not a problem to be solved by the Department of Philosophy or the Department of English—it is a problem for the Department of Justice…. Black or white, the criminal left is interested in power. It is not interested in promoting the renewal and reforms that make democracy work; it is interested in promoting those collisions and conflict that tear democracy apart.
Spiro Agnew
There is now a desperate need for a London-wide left caucus of those interested in the GLC and local councils so that we can compare and discuss what is happening in each borough.
Ken Livingstone
Chomsky, Noam
Chopin, Frederic
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