Profits Don't Equal Patriotism

"The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit, not patriotism; of credit, not honor; of individual gain, not national prosperity; of trade and dickering, not principle. "My business is sacred " says the business man in his heart. "Whatever prospers my business, is good; it must be. Whatever hinders it, is wrong; it must be. A bribe is bad, that is, it is a bad thing to take; but it is not so bad to give one, not if it is necessary to my business." "Business is business" is not a political sentiment, but our politician has caught it. He takes essentially the same view of the bribe, only he saves his self-respect by piling all his contempt upon the bribe-giver and he has the great advantage of candor. "It is wrong, maybe," he says, ‘but if a rich merchant can afford to do business with me for the sake of a convenience or to increase his already great wealth, I can afford, for the sake of living, to meet him half way. I make no pretensions to virtue, not even on Sunday."

Lincoln Steffens
From The Shame of the Cities (1904)

Ain't Politics Grand!

With the 1924 Presidential and congressional elections only two weeks away, politicians of all parties began to promise lower taxes to woo voters. In this cartoon, “Mr. Tax Payer” revels in all the attention as the Republican elephant, the Democratic donkey, and the Progressive goat try to outdo each other.

Cartoons by Clifford K. Berryman

See more at The National Archives & Records Administration.

4056 American soldiers dead, 1,205,025 Iraqis dead, $3 trillion & climbing

"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."

President George W. Bush,
(Response attributed to him by the Reverend Pat Robertson, when Robertson warned the president to prepare the nation for "heavy casualties" in the event of an Iraq war, 3/2003)


"Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, Saddam has continued to produce them, he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be deployed within 45 minutes."

Prime Minister Tony Blair
Sept 24, 2002

"I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators"

Vice President Dick Cheney
March 16 2003

"Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?"

Barbara Bush,
on Good Morning America
March 18,2003

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

President George W. Bush
May 24, 2005

The Times They Aren't A Changin'

"The conditions which surround us best justify our cooperation: we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin. Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench. The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling-places to prevent universal intimidation or bribery. The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled; public opinion silenced; business prostrated; our homes covered with mortgages; labor impoverished; and the land concentrating in the hands of the capitalists. The urban workmen are denied the right of organization for self-protection; imported pauperized labor beats down their wages; a hireling standing army, unrecognized by our laws, is established to shoot them down, and they are rapidly degenerating into European conditions. The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of these, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty. From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes-tramps and millionaires."

From the Populist Party platform 1892