Since no example of Leninist socialism is other than totalitarian and bureaucratic, one wonders how the doctrinaire ideologists can dismiss so disdainfully those who point out that the promise of socialism in freedom, while surely praiseworthy, remains a promise only, not something experienced in reality.
~ Jean-François Revel
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No one disputes that Bannon is very smart. He sweeps in information quickly, has a file-cabinet memory, can keep multiple tabs open in his brain. It’s how he uses his brain that horrifies people—and I’m talking not just about Democrats, but about many of his former colleagues, who see in him a disordered, nefarious kind of brilliance.
~ Jennifer Senior via The Atlantic
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The tragedy of Steve Bannon is that when he leaves the White House, he’s known as the great manipulator, the intellectual heavy of the international populist uprising. But still he ends up in the fetal position at Donald Trump’s feet.
~ Sam Nunberg via American Rasputin
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Democratic civilization is the first in history to blame itself because another power is working to destroy it.
~ Jean-François Revel
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Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.
~ Jean-François Revel
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Today in America—the child of European imperialism—a new revolution is rising. It is the revolution of our time – and offers the only possible escape for mankind today.
~ Jean-François Revel
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There is a big difference between being anti-American and being critical of the United States. Once again: critiques are appropriate and necessary, provided that they rest on facts and address real abuses, real errors and real excesses — without deliberately losing sight of America’s wise decisions, beneficent interventions and salutary policies.
~ Jean-François Revel
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The strange thing is that it’s always in Europe that dictatorships and totalitarian regimes spring up, yet it’s always America that is “fascist”.
~ Jean-François Revel
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