The flag of racialism which has been hoisted in Wolverhampton is beginning to look like the one that fluttered 25 years ago over Dachau and Belsen.
Interpretation
The quote compares current racialism to the historical horrors of Dachau and Belsen, warning against its resurgence.
Tony Benn's quote draws a parallel between the rise of racialism in contemporary society, particularly in Wolverhampton, and the Nazi atrocities committed during the Holocaust at concentration camps such as Dachau and Belsen. By invoking this historical context, Benn emphasizes the grave dangers of racial intolerance and the need for vigilance against such ideologies that can lead to dehumanization and violence, urging society to reflect on its past and recognize patterns that could lead to similar outcomes.
In practice
During a speech on civil rights, one might use this quote to underscore the dangers of racial intolerance.
If the Queen can reject the advice of a minister on a little thing like a postage stamp, what would happen if she rejected the advice of the Prime Minister on a major matter? If the Crown personally can reject advice, then, of course, the whole democratic facade turns out to be false
People in debt become hopeless and hopeless people don't vote. They always say that that everyone should vote but I think that if the poor in Britain or the United States turned out and voted for people that represented their interests there would be a real democratic revolution.
I opposed the Suez war, I opposed the Falklands war. I opposed the Libyan bombing and I opposed the Gulf war and I never believed that any of those principled arguments lost a single vote - indeed, I think they gained support though that was not why you did it. What has been lacking in Labour politics over a long period is a principled stand
We are paying a heavy political price for 20 years in which, as a party, we have played down our criticism of capitalism and soft-peddled our advocacy of socialism
Experience is the only real teacher and if you keep a diary you get three bites at educating yourself - when it happens, when you write it down, and when you reread it and realise you were wrong. Making mistakes is part of life. The only things I would feel ashamed of would be if I had said things I hadn't believed in order to get on. Some politicians do do that.
I think Mrs Thatcher did more damage to democracy, equality, internationalism, civil liberties, freedom in this country than any other Prime Minister this century. When the euphoria surrounding her departure subsides you will find that in a year or two's time there will not be a Tory who admits ever supporting her. People in the street will say, thank God she's gone
It is not our job to apply laws that have not yet been written.
The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.
With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order.
Man only becomes independent of this physical world when he learns to consider the objects around him as symbols. He must, for this reason, seek to acquire a moral relationship to them.
Now therefore, that my mind is free from all cares, and that I have obtained for myself assured leisure in peaceful solitude, I shall apply myself seriously and freely to the general destruction of all my former opinions.
If we assume the best in people, we can radically redesign our democracy and welfare states.
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