Democracy
"They've got guys who'll go in there and knock their heads off."
"Sure. Murderers. Guys that really, you know, that's what they really do ... it's the regular strikebusters types and all that, and ... then they're gonna beat the shit out of some of these people. And, uh, hope they really hurt 'em. You know, I mean go in with some real — and smash some noses." — Richard Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, discussing use of thugs, including some provided by the mafia-dominated Teamsters' Union, to break up protests against the Vietnam War. From a recently released 1971, pre-Watergate, tape of conversations in the Nixon White House.
Charity
"Mr Burke is still a young man with a large family to support and he needs a job." — Mining magnate Lang Hancock, announcing that he had hired former WA premier Brian Burke as a consultant on deals with eastern Europe and the USSR.
Ally — I
"Saudi swordsmen have publicly beheaded 16 men in the past three weeks after a 10-month pause." — Sydney Morning Herald, June 15.
Ally — II
"We should develop antisatellite weapons because we could not have prevailed without them in Red Storm Rising." — US Vice President Dan Quayle.
And just when the 18th century called!
British Prime Minister John Major "stands for nothing; he is nothing. He is grey, he has no ideas. I have been totally deceived." — Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
Snatching and grabbing
"We're just reaching, snatching and grabbing here. We wouldn't be allowed to do this back home, but at least it's quick and there's so much of this stuff to get." — Ross Miller of the US-based O'Brian's Oil Pollution Service (OOPS) on methods being used to clean up the oil slick in the Gulf.