Quotes by Alexander Cockburn

“A just war is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience.”

“The First Law of Journalism: to confirm existing prejudice, rather than contradict it”

“The weapon of the advocate is the sword of the soldier, not the dagger of the assassin”

“There is never finality in the display terminals screen, but an irresponsible whimsicality, as words, sentences, and paragraphs are negated at the touch of a key. The significance of the past, as expressed in the manuscript by a deleted word or an inserted correction, is annulled in idle gusts of electronic massacre.”

“The travel writer seeks the world we have lost --the lost valleys of the imagination.”

“They keep telling us that in war truth is the first casualty, which is nonsense since it implies that in times of peace truth stays out of the sick bay or the graveyard”

“A childish soul not inoculated with compulsory prayer is a soul open to any religious infection.”

“The pack slumbered and only a few watchdogs rattled their chains.”

“Be careful about Burma. Most people cannot remember whether it was Siam and has become Thailand, or whether it is now part of Malaysia and should be called Sri Lanka.”

“Why did they ban that?”

Regulation of sexual behavioris the preferred route to wider socialcontrol.

Republicans know well that a change of rhetorical pace is necessary. But efforts by their leaders to damp down the bellicosity of newly elected Tea Party types is running into the fact that the Tea Partiers have only the high volume setting on their amplifiers, just like Palin. Theyre like a couple having a fight at a funeral; politely sotto voce, then suddenly bursting out fortissimo with their plaints and accusations.

Despair is the central part of the psychopathology. For the handmaiden of gossip is treachery:

No foundation that I am aware of has hired ex-journalists to promote a thoroughgoing inquiry.

Wear the badge of environmental radicalism, and youre a citizen automatically under suspicion.